


Elemental

by Vana



Series: Elemental [1]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: ALL OF IT, All the making out, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Nobody Dies, Alternate universe - Silicon Valley, Finally, M/M, Resolved Sexual Tension, Shamelessly shippy, Soccer Moms, Unresolved Sexual Tension, all of that too, also all the sex, bite-sized bits of, sexual identity crises, suburban dads, yeah seriously
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-10
Updated: 2013-07-17
Packaged: 2017-12-14 13:43:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 37
Words: 62,317
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/837544
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vana/pseuds/Vana
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Storm’s End can be anywhere you want it to be. Mine is on the northern California coast. Through time and the ubiquitous, enveloping fog, Davos and Stannis find solace and clarity.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [fordandfitzroy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/fordandfitzroy/gifts), [Hedge_witch](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hedge_witch/gifts).

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This story began as a request from fordandfitzroy, but I’m not sure she was quite prepared for the crazy novella it became. It’s her fault I ever got into this pairing after at least a year of “No, those two would NEVER get together! Never!” As you can see, she convinced me that it was valid, and now I'm sailing off the edge of the world in this ship, AU though it may be. And I was inspired and shored up at all steps by hedge_witch and her writing and encouragement.

**Prologue**

The sea spread out white and crashing, then calmed into blue as far as the eye could see. There were islands out there somewhere, but the haze hid them, and the seals barked at the incoming fog that was turning the sky silver. A few more steps down — the concrete was crumbling but still offered purchase for the feet against the sand — and a seal might be closer than the ones clinging to the rocks out in the ocean. The fog carried their voices in so they sounded much closer than those faraway rocks. Shireen was sure she could almost see one, slippery and black like a wet dog or an otter, in the tidepool below … Just one or two more steps, and there a seal would be, waiting to push its wet nose into her hand and sniff for a fish. It would smell like wet dog, too, she thought, almost laughing to herself as she stepped lightly down what remained of the sunken staircase. It would shake like a dog after a bath. 

But when she reached the shore, there was no seal, and belatedly she looked around behind her to make sure there was no one to see her disappointment, either. As she looked back once more at the ocean, out at the disappearing rocks, the fog swept in suddenly like a curtain closing and enveloped the entire beach in a swirl of white. Shireen set her jaw and turned toward the stairs again; it was past time she was going back to the rest of her class, and her father too, if he wasn't still in the van. She peered through the fog, and for the first time a real feeling of fear came over her as she realized she couldn't actually see the cliff wall, or the steps, or even the ocean she had just been looking at. The fog had wrapped itself around everything, and it was getting cold and dark and she couldn't see anything anymore — she could only smell the water. 

Shireen didn't know whether to scream or cry, walk forward or stand still. She took a tentative step forward and a gust of wind buffeted her, but she leaned straight into it and kept going, though the sand was kicking into her eyes and stinging them. Just back uphill, she told herself, but it was so hard to tell where that was anymore. 

It could have been the sand that finally started the tears, but as the world blurred in front of her and she opened her mouth to shout, she saw a dark shape materialize out of the mist — a man, not her father, shorter than he was — should she go to him or hide? He was a stranger and what would Papa say then? But this thought was eclipsed by the knowledge that the stranger was the only one who could see her, and maybe help her. He reached her and put out his hand. He wore a flannel shirt like the ones some of the older boys wore at school, and when he saw her tears he put his arm around her and she did not really mind. With his arm secure around her shoulders he steered her back up the steps she couldn't see, and up to where the grass resolved itself out of the fog. 

Her classmates were standing in huddled, scared clusters, and her father was running toward her, scared and angry at once. Her tears had dried while she and the man had walked, not talking, but now they returned in force — her father was very upset, he shook while he held her close, and she clung to him and cried into his jacket while she worried what he would say to her. A voice Shireen never liked, but which always told her naughty things in her ear anyway, said that maybe if she kept crying he wouldn't be so mad. And maybe that was true. She wound herself up to unleash another torrent of tears, which were not really so hard to keep going — she had been very scared, and not very brave at all, and needed someone else to come rescue her, and at any rate she still didn't know what he was going to say to her — she heard the other man's voice for the first time. “There,” he said, his voice calming her, “you’re all right.” He seemed to be talking to her, but also to Papa, who loosened his hold on her just the slightest bit. Shireen stopped crying out of pure curiosity, and took her face out of her father’s shoulder to look up. “Just a little touch of fog,” the man said. “It can get dicey, but there, you’re all right.” He smiled in a quiet way at Shireen, nodded at Papa and walked off to the visitor’s center further upland, where they had all come in.

The other kids were finally starting to talk, even to mill about restlessly. Shireen wanted a drink of water; she wanted to go to the van, she wanted to go home and rest. She looked timidly at her father, who was staring out where the ocean should be. She took his hand, tugged a little, and he dropped his glance to her anxious face. He did not smile, but neither did he look angry anymore. With his hand in hers Shireen started to walk toward the parking lot and her father, very meekly it seemed, followed.

**Chapter 1**

He hadn't wanted to chaperone this field trip in the first place. Hadn’t wanted to drive some mother’s minivan whose seat was too high for his head not to bump against the ceiling. Hadn't wanted to take almost the entire day off work and watch a bunch of his daughter’s classmates, some of whom seemed to have no limit to the volume of their voices, run around an empty beach for six hours. Hadn’t wanted to worry about keeping track of sack lunches and who had peanut allergies and who couldn't eat sugar and who, despite those restrictions, would inexplicably try to switch their lunches anyway. He hadn't wanted to do any of this, but he had been asked, by parents who knew he telecommuted and thus took that as carte blanche to take liberties with his time. He had been asked, and also reminded that every parent was obliged to chaperone at least one trip over the school year, and if Mr. Baratheon wasn’t interested in the Storm’s End Marine Reserve, perhaps he would rather go on the Halloween trip to the Oldtown Shopping Center next month? Presented with that option, Stannis had tersely assented, as he was left, as he saw it, with no choice.

Besides, Shireen had been intensely excited. Stannis had no idea why, as she had to know he wouldn't be comfortable and wasn't the type of father one would want to show off to one’s friends. But she stayed excited, in her quiet way, smiling to herself all the way until he had let the kids go off with the teacher and finally relaxed into the cushioned driver's seat of the minivan, almost letting his eyes fall closed after the hectic morning — until he had heard a high-pitched rush of children’s voices, not children playing, but children scared — and the voice of Sam Tarly, the young teacher, rising above those. Stannis had come fully alert then and tried to piece out words. Shireen! he heard, Where’s Shireen? And then he had run, leaving the minivan to beep in protest at its door being left open, he had run as he had not run in a very long time, and he had stopped short at the edge of the cliff where he saw … nothing, nothing but fog and white and waves.

After the adrenaline rush had hit him but before he had had time to truly panic or start to think about setting down toward the ocean, Shireen had emerged, tucked into the arm of a man who — well, whom Stannis never even noticed as he rushed toward his daughter, caught between rage and relief, and caught her up in his arms as she clung to him and sobbed. 

She was cleaning up in the bathroom of the visitor’s center when Stannis finally remembered the other man. He turned to look for him and saw him standing behind the desk, organizing flyers as he talked to several of Shireen's classmates. He steeled himself for what was sure to be an uncomfortable but necessary exchange, but before he could speak, the man caught his eye and smiled. “Excuse me,” he said, almost too politely for a bunch of kids, Stannis thought, and he approached.

“Your daughter?” he began, then continued at Stannis' brief nod, “She was very brave. Stoic, I’d say. I’ve seen some full-grown adults caught down there in a fog who came apart much more than she did.”

“Thank you,” said Stannis, addressing both the dubious compliment to Shireen and the situation itself — after all, this was the man who had saved his daughter from … from what he resolved not to think about right then. “I very much —” He cleared his throat and started again. “My thanks are insufficient, but they are all I have.”

The man smiled, disarmingly it seemed, as though amused by something he wasn’t sharing. “I’m a park ranger,” he said, lifting the lapel of his faded flannel to show his name badge: Davos Seaworth, California Department of Fish and Game. “If we don’t rescue kids at least once a week, we get our pay docked.”

Stannis must have looked alarmed. “We don’t,” Davos Seaworth said hurriedly. “We don’t get our pay docked.” Trying to put on a smile that said of course not, he knew that all the time, Stannis nodded. “Well, thank you, anyway — Mr. Seaworth.” 

“Not at all,” the ranger said, “not a bit of it. Her mom would’ve killed you, yeah?” A sideways smile accompanied this, but Stannis bit back something between a snort and a sneer, and turned half away. The other man looked perplexed, but seemed to rally. “Your teacher,” he said after a pause, “he seems to be a bit upset. Were you all wanting to go to another part of the park yet today? — the fog is in, but there may be some visible tidepools …”

Stannis was at a loss with this. He wanted nothing more than to take Shireen home, but his daughter seemed to be recovered from her scare and her tears and was animatedly chatting with two other girls. Mr. Tarly, however, was clearly losing control of the situation. “They should have brought another teacher,” he muttered. There was nothing for it but to get involved. Stannis gave the ranger what could have passed, for a moment, for a wry smile before stepping into the fray.


	2. Chapter 2

It wasn’t hard, after all, not to scold Shireen for that trick at the shore. Once Stannis knew just how scared she’d been — once she had told him, in ghost-story detail, how the fog had swept in and overcome her sight when she was just looking for an animal she thought she could hear — he had been able to close his mouth on any remonstration and just listen and be glad she was safe. 

Volatile late summer warmed into that flawless, only-in-northern-California autumn, and the school year began to take shape. One blue Saturday morning, Shireen walked into the kitchen where Stannis was reading the newspaper and said, “Let’s go back to the beach.”

Stannis folded the paper down over his cup of tea. “Which beach?” Surely she didn't want to go back to where she'd had such a fright. 

“With the seals,” she said. “And the starfish. And, I made something …” Shireen smiled and dropped her eyes, in the way that was uniquely her own. Stannis had never seen anyone else with quite that expression. It usually meant she was shy about something; sometimes Stannis became frustrated with how bashful she could be at the most inappropriate times, but now he was just curious. 

“What did you make?”

She beamed at him. “Just wait here!”

With a slight shrug, Stannis picked up his tea and paper, but the teacup was hardly to his mouth before Shireen returned with a folded piece of paper. “Here it is,” she said, opening it with kind of a flourish. Stannis peered at it: Shireen was very good at drawing, for her age, even her teachers said that — but he was having a hard time figuring this one out. There was water, some rocks, sand, what looked like horses or dogs sitting either in the water or on the rocks … in the corner, Shireen, the way she always drew herself with long curly hair and red cowboy boots, next to a man whose face had been erased and redrawn so many times it was essentially a smudge.

“Is that me?” he asked.

“Noo—oo …” She crinkled her eyes. “It’s the man from the beach — remember? He held my hand and brought me out of the fog. So I made this for him. Because I was too scared right then to say thank you.”

She was always more thoughtful than he was — always much more thoughtful than either he or her mother, he thought. Where she got that trait, Stannis had no idea, but it must have been from his parents, and most likely his own mother. He wished for the thousandth time that Steffon and Cassana had ever known his daughter. Meanwhile she stood waiting for his opinion, or his approval.

“That’s very nice,” he told her, while privately wondering if the ranger — what was his name? Seacrest? — would have any use for a nine-year-old’s art. “What made you think of it?”

“Well, I never said thank you.” She seemed to stick at that point — Shireen, while no waster of words, always knew her please and thank you. Stannis had made sure of that. But he certainly hadn’t expected her to self-enforce it after she'd had such a scare, and with someone she might not ever see again. 

“We can take it — but I can’t guarantee that he’ll be there,” Stannis said. “If he isn’t, we can leave it for him.”

“Can we leave it in one of your big envelopes?” The smallest things seemed to make the biggest difference with her. He wondered if that, too, was a legacy of his mother.

“Yes, if you go get it. We can write his name on it and they will give it to him if he isn’t there.”

“But he will be there,” Shireen said over her shoulder, almost skipping to Stannis’ home office to get a manila envelope. “He’s always there.”

Stannis thought about asking her just where she got that idea, but she was gone, and anyway he hadn’t finished the paper or his tea and thought they ought to get an early start before the traffic on the beach-bound highway started to pile up, as it inevitably did on a sunny weekend day. Still, he didn't have anywhere else to be.

Once in the car, envelope in hand, Shireen settled into her usual quiet, watching out the window as the hills rolled by. Her eyes widened as the ocean view opened up suddenly in front of them, not a shred of fog or cloud to mar the horizon. The traffic was light, since they had come early enough, and the blue of the water reflected brilliantly as Stannis pulled his sedan into the near-empty parking lot in front of the visitor’s center. Parked in front was a ranger’s Jeep, dusty white and mud-splattered, and in the farthest corner of the lot was a beige hatchback, almost as dirty, with a smattering of bumper stickers decorating the back that were too far away to read. Shireen, impatient now, pulled on Stannis’ hand.

The ranger who had brought Shireen back was sitting behind the counter, head bowed over a clipboard and his long hair partially hiding his face. When he heard them come in, he looked up quickly. Stannis was almost taken aback by the warmth in the smile that greeted first him, then Shireen, who was beaming back. 

“Morning,” the ranger said, unnaturally cheery for this hour, Stannis thought. Seaworth, that was his name. Then to Shireen, “Did you bring your whole school with you again?”

“No,” she said, standing on one foot, then the other. It often seemed like Shireen was playing an eternal game of hopscotch. Stannis had gotten used to it but the other man looked curiously at her. “I brought you something.” She skipped up to the counter, opened the manila envelope and ceremoniously spread out her drawing over the brochures and papers. Stannis winced inwardly at the mess, but the ranger seemed delighted. 

“You drew this for me?” he said. “That's pretty great. I can’t say I’ve had a visitor bring me anything they’ve made before.” He spared a smile for Stannis — as though he had had anything to do with it! — before bending over the picture again. “You put in the seals,” he said. Stannis looked over Shireen's shoulder — so those were the horse-like animals out on the rocks — how on earth he could have figured that out was beyond Stannis. “And you put in the starfish.”

“I put _you_ in,” Shireen said, “and I was going to write your name here but … I forgot what it was.” This was not true; she had never known it, but Stannis wasn’t inclined to point that out right now. 

“It's Davos,” he said, leaving off the surname, “do you want to write it here?”

“You write it.” 

Stannis watched him carefully write his name under the much-smudged stick figure. He imagined Davos couldn’t possibly have children or he wouldn't be so tickled at a drawing of himself; they piled up like catalogs and newspaper inserts before you knew it. 

“Write mine too. ... Shireen,” she said, and spelled it out for him.

When he was done writing, Davos held out his hand to her. “I’m very pleased to meet you, Shireen,” he said, again in that almost-formal tone that Stannis thought so out of place when talking to children. Regardless, the courtesies had to be repaid. Stannis held out his own hand and the ranger took it. “Stannis Baratheon,” he said, very businesslike, “we met before, but I don’t think I introduced myself. I was not … quite myself then.”

“Of course.”

“Now Shireen,” Stannis said, “we should either go to the water or go home. I’m sure Mr. Seaworth has work to do.”

“Just Davos, please. And this is my job,” he said, addressing Shireen again with a smile, “the papers are just while I wait for someone to come in and talk to me. I could show you the tidepools. This weather, there ought to be all kinds of interesting things swimming around in there.”

Walking down to the shore, Shireen went a little ahead, and Davos said to Stannis, “You came at low tide — it’s the perfect time. Did you look up the tide charts?”

“No. Shireen just wanted to come down. She did not feel she had properly thanked you for … the last time she saw you.” Stannis stared out at the calm water, the perfect sky. He couldn’t seem to look at Davos; he felt suddenly a failure of a father, letting his only child wander off to be drowned. 

“Just that she wanted to come back here is thanks enough,” Davos said. “And I keep saying — it’s my job. I counted heads when they came in, and when the fog came in I counted one less head.”

 _Fewer_ , Stannis wanted to say, but he held his tongue. It wouldn’t do to start correcting the grammar of someone he had just met.

“And so I knew someone had probably gone off. Now, if they’d gone back to the cars, or to the bathroom, not such a problem. If they’d gone to the beach, that's where I wanted to look. Of course, she was there and I said she was very brave, and she was. A lot of kids don't ever want to come back, but here you guys are, no big deal! She's a good kid.” Here Stannis actually looked again at Davos, to thank him for saying so about Shireen, but Davos had knelt on the sand and was poking something clear and jiggly with a gloved hand. He picked it up and brought it to where Shireen waited.

“It's a jellyfish!” she shrieked, and even Stannis drew back. “Don’t they sting?” he asked.

“They can,” Davos said. “But if they're on land they’re probably dead. They can still sting for a little while.” He walked up to the water's edge and gently dropped the jellyfish in while Shireen watched, wide-eyed. “Just in case he’s still alive,” he added.

It was almost afternoon by the time she and Davos had exhausted the discussion of the miracles of nature to be found in the murky tidepools. Stannis had been patient — it was better to have Shireen out here learning things than in front of the television, however much he himself thought he would rather have been home. He had to admit he’d enjoyed the sunshine and the quietly tossing tide, and the calming patter of the voices against it. Muddy-shoed and beaming, Shireen led the way as the three of them walked leisurely, their pace slowed from the absorbed sunshine, back up to the visitor’s center. Another car was pulling in, and Davos looked almost remorseful as he said goodbye. “Thank you for the drawing,” he said to Shireen. To Stannis he gave a quick and warm smile. “And thanks for bringing her here again. It’s nice to see such a smart kid interested in this kind of thing …”

“She is always interested in the outdoors,” Stannis said.

“Then she should come back. It's always changing.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A [map](http://onehotsummer.tumblr.com/image/52654247923) of this world. Stannis and Shireen live at Summerhall. To get to the Storm's End Marine Reserve, they take the big interstate north, then cut over on the curvy east-west state highway, and at Tarth they catch the coastal highway north. The drive is about 45 minutes and it's one of the most beautiful drives in the country. Davos lives just south of Rainwood and his commute to work is 10 to 15 minutes depending on the weather at the coast.


	3. Chapter 3

The next weekend, Shireen wanted to go again. They still had their hiking boots and hosed-off sandals by the door from the time before, so it was easy to pack everything up in the car and head back over the ridge to the beach. With Stannis’ black velcro Tevas and Shireen’s purple flip-flops in the trunk, and the Storm’s End trail maps carefully folded in the glove box, they encountered a little more traffic than last week but still arrived in plenty of time for another walk down the shore before lunch. 

The parking lot was almost full, and something at the back of Stannis’ mind scanned for a bestickered beige hatchback, but it wasn’t there. Shireen, ever in motion, skipped ahead up to the visitors’ center. Stannis looked out over the beach — a blue-gray day, not as idyllic as last weekend, with some mist rising from the water. His stomach tightened involuntarily as he thought of the fog, and watched Shireen emerge from the center, decidedly more sedate. 

“He’s not here,” she said when they met in the bark and sand by a picnic table. 

“Davos?” It was unnecessary; who else could she mean? But he somehow felt like he needed to confirm it aloud. “Well, did they say where he was?”

“No, just that he wasn’t here. You go ask, Papa.” Her little face was concerned, and Stannis felt worry tugging at him through her. He shrugged — if it would ease her mind for him to inquire, there was no harm in it.

Without stopping to look around and with Shireen holding his hand, Stannis strode up to the desk. His tone brooked no nonsense. “We were looking for Mr. Seaworth,” he said to the ranger behind the counter, whose dark, curly mop of hair spoke more to a life in the salon than on the seaside. Jon Snow, his name tag read. He blinked at Stannis for a moment, almost reeling that someone would speak to him in that way — in what Stannis considered a perfectly straightforward manner, but to which some people were evidently not accustomed. Stannis sighed and waited. 

“He’s not here,” said Jon Snow.

“Yes, my daughter learned that.” Stannis’ patience was wearing down. “We were wondering where he was, if it is within your rights to tell us. The last two times we were here, she had spoken with him and I suppose she is concerned.”

“Oh, he’s fine!” With Shireen as the impetus for the line of questioning, Jon Snow seemed to be much more at ease. “We switched our shifts is all.”

“Why?” said Shireen from Stannis’ side. He turned to tell her that was prying, but Jon answered first. “I have a date tomorrow,” he said. “My girlfriend’s visiting from Alaska.”

Shireen’s eyes widened at the mention of Alaska. “Does she live in an igloo?” 

“It sometimes gets cold enough to believe that,” said the young ranger, the first sign of a genuine smile appearing on his face. “But no, she lives in an apartment.”

“And as for Mr. Seaworth — he will be back...” Stannis felt as though the point of the conversation was getting away from them.

“He’ll be here tomorrow. And then next week, Tuesday through Saturday like usual.”

“I have soccer tomorrow,” Shireen said. She enjoyed soccer but Stannis was never sure whether she liked it enough to keep her on the team — the time commitment alone was a drain, not to mention the people he had to deal with during the practices and the games. His brow furrowed at the thought of some of the parents. All things considered, he’d rather be back here. Shireen was still talking. “Can you tell him we came?”

“All right,” Snow said. “What are your names?”

“Shireen Baratheon,” she said. Snow looked at a loss — an admittedly common reaction when faced with the surname — and Stannis sighed inwardly and reached for his wallet, pulling out a business card. Under his own name he scrawled _\+ Shireen_ , and handed it to the ranger. Jon Snow looked slightly amused and Stannis tried — once more — to keep his patience. Snow clearly wasn’t old enough to have children — he barely looked 18 — so Stannis could hardly commiserate with him on their whims. 

“We’ll thank you to pass that on to him,” he said, nodding curtly and turning for the door. “Bye,” said Shireen. Shy again, Shireen waved and ducked under Stannis' arm.

“Well,” he said once they were outside, “do you still want to walk around? We might as well, we’re here ...”

Shireen pondered. She looked up at Stannis with anxiety knitting her eyebrows. “It’s not the same,” she said. The air had cooled while they were inside and the beach was choked with families either wrapping themselves in warmer layers or packing their things to leave. “I’d rather go back home if you don’t mind.”

Stannis wanted to protest — it was educational for her to be here, learning about the creatures crawling on the rocks and sand — and it was good for her to be outside in the fresh air. But the argument died on his lips. It wasn’t that long a drive to get back, they had the soccer game to get ready for, and he found himself agreeing with his daughter: it really wasn’t the same.


	4. Chapter 4

Stannis’ head was pounding under the bright sun, his shoulders ached from too much time at the computer the night before, and there were four soccer fields full of screaming children in front of him. He sat stiffly in his beat-up lawn chair that he dragged to the field every other Sunday, halfheartedly trying to relax, but the squeals caught in his ears and his concentration wandered and snapped back in frustration. There was nothing to do but endure it. 

A strident voice floated above the rest. _I should have known she’d start in on top of everything_ , Stannis thought wearily, casting his gaze about to make sure his daughter wasn’t caught in the vortex that was Cersei Lannister, who couldn’t make it through practice — let alone a game — without raising her voice at her beleaguered daughter. Stannis was on his feet before he knew it when he saw, heart sinking, that Shireen indeed was in the tight knot of girls lorded over by Cersei. The competing desires to get her away and to let her handle things kept him rooted where he was. But he listened. 

“Myrcella, I swear to God,” came Cersei’s voice. Shrill at the best of times, she got downright malicious when it came to soccer. This was not unusual, but parents’ ire was generally directed at the referees or opposing players, not at their own children. Stannis had observed, with growing horror, that Cersei seemed to have no such qualms about laying into her daughter — Myrcella, who was the very image of Cersei with her refined, aquiline features and long blonde curls, but in temperament couldn’t have been more different. Myrcella was even more bashful than Shireen, with none of Shireen’s quiet joie de vivre or streak of mischief. Myrcella seemed cowed, and Stannis entirely blamed her harpy of a mother — not that her father was much good either — he never appeared and was rarely spoken of except as a drunken wreck of a man who was likely as not an absentee, if not deadbeat, dad. Stannis, who had raised Shireen entirely alone since she was less than a year old, had no patience for this kind of thing. But nor did he have any for Cersei, who was at the moment browbeating her daughter for letting through what Cersei thought was an easy save. “All you had to do was _get in the way of the ball_ and you couldn’t even do that. What are the other girls going to think? You let them all down!”

Silence, then a small voice: “We think she’s really good.”

Stannis felt a sudden stab of pride. Shireen had her arm around Myrcella’s shaking shoulders but was looking up at Cersei with something like defiance in her face. “She’s the best goalie we’ve ever had.”

Cersei’s eyebrows rose dangerously. “Oh, well, in that case. I’m sure in your vast experience ...”

“That’s enough, Cersei.” Stannis and the coach, Brienne, reached the group at the same time. Stannis would have gone on if Brienne hadn’t stepped in. “Girls,” she said, helplessly, not looking at Cersei and not moving to comfort Myrcella, Stannis noticed. “You all played a great game.” It was then that Stannis realized that Myrcella had actually lost the game by letting that goal in. Still, it didn’t matter — this was just fourth-graders playing intramural soccer, for God's sake.

Cersei dropped Brienne as a lost cause and narrowed her beautiful green eyes at Stannis. “I’m surprised you even noticed we were here,” she said to him. “I understand you don’t always keep ... how can I say this? ... very good track of your own daughter.”

“Excuse me?” Stannis’ tone was ice. He could see Shireen tense up.

“We all know you lost her at the beach,” Cersei went on, a note of sadistic pleasure taking shape in her voice. “A park ranger had to bring her back. And you were supposed to be _chaperoning_! We trusted you with our babies and you didn’t even keep your own safe.”

Stannis drew himself up to full height and glared down at her witheringly. “I notice they never even asked you to accompany the class,” he bit back. “It wouldn’t do to have you making everyone _cry_ along the way.”

Cersei recoiled slightly from this. “I can’t help it that Myrcella is too sensitive. She can’t take any criticism without breaking down.”

“You could be nicer to her,” Shireen said. The small knot of girls, Brienne, and Cersei all turned to stare as one. Stannis seized on the pause to take his daughter’s hand firmly. “Time to go,” he said, low. She patted Myrcella on the shoulder timidly one last time and together they left.

Once in the car, Shireen seemed to sink back into the seat, looking on the verge of tears herself now that it was all over. 

“You were very brave back there,” Stannis said. “But you shouldn’t argue with someone’s mother.” He didn’t say, _because she will chew you up and spit you out_. Better to have Shireen believe he spoke out of the wish to have her respect her elders.

“She made Myrcella cry, Papa,” Shireen protested. “And it’s not the first time. Myrcella cries _all_ the time. She cries at school.”

“Has she told anyone? A teacher?” 

“Everybody knows. But nobody can do anything because she’s not being hit. Me and Jeyne heard Brienne and Mr. Tarly talking about it. Nurse Westerling too. If her mom was hitting Myrcella they could take her away.”

“Jeyne and I,” Stannis said absentmindedly. “Well, let’s be thankful it hasn’t gotten that bad.” He turned to Shireen at a stoplight and studied her face. “Are you sure you want to keep on with soccer? It seems like it’s nothing but stress. And you like doing other things better. You could take an art class on the weekends ...”

Shireen shook her head. “Green light, Papa,” she pointed out. “Me quitting soccer won’t matter. Myrcella’s mom will still be mean whether I’m there or not.”

“The point,” Stannis said, accelerating, “is not whether Myrcella is happy, but whether you are.”

Shireen didn’t answer this, but they were almost home.

“Did you really think I was brave?” she asked him once inside, looking up at him with concern in her face.

“You stood up for someone who was being mistreated. That’s very brave, yes.”

Beaming, she squeezed his hand and, a body in constant motion, skipped away to the backyard, most likely to kick the infernal soccer ball around for another couple of hours. Stannis sank into a living room chair when he heard the back door close. Shireen shouldn’t argue with an adult — and he was very proud — and she wasn’t bad at soccer. But for himself, he would be relieved never to have to face down Cersei Lannister on a Sunday again.


	5. Chapter 5

It wasn’t often that Stannis had to go into his company’s office, but occasionally his presence was needed. About half of the firm’s employees worked from home, and their locations spanned the globe. Stannis was lucky enough that although the headquarters were local, he was able to work from home anyway — for one, he’d been with the company for more than twenty years and was grandfathered in from the original, completely distributed company. For another, his managers respected that he raised his daughter alone and needed to be home with her when he could. And there was an unspoken agreement among the employees — junior and senior — that they would rather not have Stannis Baratheon stalking the halls of the building, slamming his door in frustration if he couldn’t solve a problem, and generally being unfriendly in the cafeteria or at the coffee maker.

The work day was only half over, but Stannis was far beyond exasperated when he emerged from his third meeting of the morning with no clearer resolution to the problem at hand than if he'd stayed at home. His coworkers adjourned for lunch, watching in some relief as Stannis bolted from the office. He was not, he said, coming back that day. He would be available as usual over e-mail. 

When he got in his car, jaw clenched in frustration — there were so many small problems to deal with before his team could even begin tackling the larger one — he began to head home. Starting with soccer and Cersei Lannister’s blowup on Sunday, it had been a very long week. But as he crested a rise on the highway, something blue and twinkling called to him out of the corner of his eye: the water, and a clear sky. He looked at the dashboard clock — plenty of time before Shireen would be home from school — and turned off on the state road toward the beach.

The parking lot at the Storm’s End visitor center was far from full, but Stannis looked first for the cream hatchback with all the bumper stickers. It was there, but he didn't go in, instead heading for an empty bench that bestowed on its occupant, Stannis decided then and there, one of the best views in all the state. The shoreline spread out in full regalia, north to south, ornate with white foam at the water’s edge and studded with rusty tidepools, with the bits of green seaweed or algae in between. A few families were out on the beach, walking with cautious steps through the choppy terrain or sitting on the sand soaking in the sun. But Stannis hardly noticed them — they seemed to be part of the landscape somehow instead of an intrusion. He stared out at the water for a long time, first chewing over this intractable problem with work, then letting his thoughts wander elsewhere, to the evening ahead — but eventually the rhythm of the waves and sounds of the seabirds lulled his mind and then he was just watching, thinking about nothing at all.

He didn't know how long it had really been since he’d taken his seat on the wooden bench, but he was caught slightly off-guard when he refocused on the closest group of people on the beach — a couple, with a toddler — and Davos was with them, leaning down to the child’s level and finally kneeling there on the sand to show him something in one of the pools. Stannis both wanted and didn't want to go and intrude, so he stayed where he was. 

They were about forty feet away and he could hear their voices coming to him over the wind, but not the words. The baby’s mother was pretty — small and brunette, smiling into the afternoon sun. The father, in his cargo shorts and t-shirt, was gangly, though not as tall as Stannis. The toddler’s curly hair blew in the slight breeze and he held onto Davos’ arm as they peered together into one of the fissures. Davos was tanned, darker than the khaki of the ranger’s uniform he wore, and he held the baby steady with one hand while he tried and failed, with the other, to keep his hair from blowing and falling into his face. Only in California, Stannis thought, could a state employee look so much like a Grateful Dead follower. A sudden bark of laughter seized him as he tried to imagine Davos clean-shaven and short-haired, like the businesspeople in Stannis’ company, or the fathers at Shireen’s school. No, it was much better this way. There was something maritime about Davos, something that joined him with the rustle of the tide ... Stannis arrested this thought, perplexed. He had no idea what he had meant to do out here, except gather his thoughts about work and try to relax a little before Shireen got home from school, but it certainly wasn't dissecting the aesthetic sensibilities of someone he hardly knew. 

He was about to stand and leave. The family on the beach had spread out a blanket; the woman was lying down, the man looking at his phone, the baby sitting up sifting sand through his fingers. And Davos was walking up the hill, almost silhouetted by the strong sun at his back. Stannis watched him coming and settled back down on the bench.

“Stannis,” Davos said, with the same warm smile he remembered from last time, skipping the handshake this time. “Do you mind if I sit down? ... You’re here in the middle of the day.”

“I just got out of work,” Stannis said, “and from the car, it looked too nice here not to come.”

Davos was pleased; it was written on every inch of his face. “Yes, it’s an amazing day. Do you do shift work?”

“Oh — no, I work at home usually, but I was at the office for the morning.” Stannis furrowed his brow, thinking of the interminable discussions he had had to sit through. “Meetings.”

“Everyone’s favorite thing,” Davos agreed. “What do you do?”

“I’m a software developer,” Stannis said, suddenly feeling self-conscious about his profession for the first time in years, out here in the elements where the man he was talking to worked with people, and his hands, doing something that benefited nature, and children's growing brains, instead of investors’ wallets. He tamped down the impulse to take his white-collar guilt and flee. “My company works on databases.” He looked out toward the water, hoping this line of conversation was over. Thankfully Davos seemed to pick up on it. 

“How is Shireen? I understand she was here asking about me the other day, that was very ...” Davos appeared to struggle for a word. “That was very surprising. In a good way. Surprising in a good way.”

“She was surprised — _not_ in a good way — that you weren’t here." 

“Oh,” Davos said, and Stannis could almost see the blush appearing on his face. “Jon said she was funny. I think that’s what he said. He said she joked about his girlfriend.”

“Yes,” Stannis said, gritting his teeth. “You were very forbearing to switch days with him for something like that.”

Davos looked surprised. “Oh, it was nothing at all to do it. We all try to cover for each other when we can. Although if I had known that I was going to have a visitor—!” He turned to Stannis. “I hope you didn't have to come far.”

“Just from Summerhall.”

“How long did you stay?” 

“Not long at all. Shireen had soccer the next day and so we decided to go home. She said,” and here Stannis hesitated; would his daughter be embarrassed if she knew he was saying this? Davos was looking questioningly at him and he went ahead, carefully. “She said it wasn’t the same.”

Davos was very definitely turning red again and Stannis tried to backpedal. “She’s imaginative, she gets these fancies ... And she doesn’t have many adults she actually talks to. She’s really very shy although you wouldn't know it from how she behaves here ...”

“Maybe being at the ocean helps her open up,” Davos said, recovering, musing. “It does with many people.”

“Yes, perhaps.” Stannis looked at his watch and stood up. “She’s due home in less than an hour, so I need to be going.” His face felt warm; he had sat in the sun too long, but it wasn't unpleasant. “We will come back again soon,” he said, “but not Sundays; there’s soccer — assuming you will be here on Saturdays as usual?”

“I'll be here,” Davos said. “Tell her hello for me, please ... and you, too, come back any time you need to ... not be in a meeting or something.” His face broke into a grin. “After talking to a two-year-old for an hour, even software is a nice change.”

Stannis, driving home, noticed that his black mood had entirely lifted. The sun and the waves were good for him, though he would need to bring a cap next time. And there would be a next time, he decided. After all, he had been invited.


	6. Chapter 6

Davos was hardly surprised to see them again that weekend, the tall, spare figure of Stannis holding the hand of Shireen, whose long ponytail waved in the wind as she pulled her father toward the water. The tide was low, and children dotted the beach, walking unsteadily or confidently or crawling on their hands to look for starfish and the trails left by sea lion flippers. Parents rested on blankets, drinking coffee from their paper cups and plying infants with Cheerios from baggies. And Shireen ran up to him. "Papa said you'd be here," she said, out of breath. "We missed you the last time. And then he came _without_ me." A mock pout toward Stannis accompanied this.

"I heard you met Jon Snow," Davos said, trying to suppress a grin.

"With the girlfriend who lives in an igloo."

"Shireen, he said she doesn't live in an igloo, she lives in an apartment."

"Papa, I'm _pretending_."

Stannis shrugged, resigned, and Davos laughed. "She's gone back now. And Jon is cranky. She only comes down here once or twice a year."

"Does he go visit her?" Stannis asked.

"Well, it's strange about that. Her family isn't exactly ... they don't entirely welcome ..." Davos trailed off.

"Ah," Stannis said. "Shireen, do you want to go down into the water? If it's not too cold, we can wade in, but I want you to tell me how cold it is first." 

Shireen skipped down to the water almost before he had finished speaking. Davos expected Stannis to ask about the situation between Jon Snow and his girlfriend, and Stannis looked like he was about to say something, but then fell silent.

Davos followed Stannis’ gaze out to where Shireen had gone. She had almost reached the water, but had become sidetracked and now knelt by a tidepool, feeling for a shell in the foam.

“Do you mind if I ask ...” he started. Stannis looked at him. “About what?”

“Her mother? I mean, she only ever comes with you, and most parents it’s weekends or whatever but you guys are here together all the time.”

 “She’s gone,” Stannis said, and Davos had the distinct sensation they were talking about a dead person. He thought of condolences, but Stannis went on. “She left us when Shireen wasn’t a year old.” 

Left _us_ , not _me_ , Davos noticed. He shot Stannis a sympathetic look.

“She thought she wanted marriage and a baby,” Stannis said. “But then even before Shireen was born she was half out the door.”

“Does she ever see Shireen?”

“No.” The word was a sinking stone, somewhere between a bark and a laugh. “And I don’t know that I’d want her to anyway — the life she must have. A different boyfriend every week, her sister told me. ... That was years ago.” He seemed to reconsider. “It may be different now. But she hasn’t much kept in touch at any rate. A card at Christmas.”

After a moment of silence, Stannis turned to him. “What about you? Married?” His tone caught Davos off-guard — it was stilted somehow, a studied sort of casual. Davos figured he just didn’t like small talk. 

“Divorced, too,” Davos said. “We’re still friends, though, but she lives down south now.”

“What happened? If I may ask,” Stannis added quickly.

“Nothing too explosive.” Davos had been explaining this for years; it came easily by now. “We just fell out of love, I suppose. She knew it first, and then when she brought it up, I knew she was right.”

“Did you have children?”

“Yeah,” Davos began, but just then Shireen ran up and another family descended on him at the same time, needing directions back into town. “I’ll be back,” he said to Stannis and Shireen. But when he was finally done with all the visitors who seemed to line up with requests and exigencies — where is a map, the bathroom is out of toilet paper, there’s a lost camera — they had gone. Davos began closing up the center, his mind on the absent mother. Had she not felt the inexorable bond with the baby that he had felt with his sons? Was she content to merely contact Shireen once a year, through the mail, or was there something Stannis wasn’t saying, something that kept her from getting through? 

He waved away that last possibility. What little Stannis had said Davos knew, from the little he knew the man, to be the truth, without omission or embroidery. But what he didn’t know was whether Stannis was still mourning her — maybe the loss of his wife still ate at him, or maybe he was relieved she had left when she did instead of dragging it out. Davos realized with a bit of impatience he didn’t even know whether Stannis was in another relationship. All he had asked was where Shireen’s mother was. _A girlfriend would have come here with them by now_ , he thought, but there was no point in jumping to conclusions or trying to be an armchair analyst. Somehow it would come up, he was sure, and then he would tell them all about Marya, and about their sons. The thought of that, he found, was cheering.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's [a photo](http://onehotsummer.tumblr.com/image/53114150973) of Davos' beach, on a gorgeous day with lots of families visiting.

Stannis found himself awake early the next weekend, uncharacteristically cheerful when Shireen, rosy as always in the mornings, asked him at breakfast, “Are we going to see Davos again today?” Not “are we going to the beach,” Stannis noticed, but he didn’t comment on it. Water shoes and towels went in the trunk, routine by now. 

When they pulled up and walked down to the water, Davos waved from far across the beach, as if he had been waiting for them. Shireen ran lightly over the rocks to him, but Stannis walked slower, watching their shadows on the sand. Some of the calm from the last time he had been there, alone, seeped into him like he was one more sponge on the shore, absorbing the sun and the sounds of the water. He spread out his towel, making sure Shireen could see where he was, and sat looking out for a few minutes before he leaned back, arms behind his head, and closed his eyes.

He could hear their voices floating over the breeze, but even if he hadn’t been able to, he could not worry about Shireen — not here — when he knew she was with Davos. The trust and tranquility was foreign to him, but he didn’t push it away.

The sun was higher when they finally returned, Shireen out of breath as she ran up to him. “Papa, look,” she said, pulling Stannis by the hand until he sat up. “We went all the way out there.” She was pointing at something far up the beach; it could have been a ruined pier or a cluster of rocks but it was disappearing in the haze that crept up from the sea even in the sunshine. 

“How far was that?”

“Maybe half a mile,” Davos said. “I hoped you weren’t worried...”

“Oh no,” Stannis found himself rushing to reassure him, “not when she’s with you.” 

Davos looked down at him and Stannis recognized the sudden flush in his face; _why_ did his treacherous brain insist on embarrassing this poor man at every chance? He started to apologize — for what he was not sure — but Shireen interrupted.

“Papa, did we bring any snacks?”

Grateful for the distraction, Stannis stood, shaking out the towel, not looking at Davos. “No, not this time,” he said. “We’ll have to go back or find a store if you’re hungry now.”

“You could go to the cafe in town,” Davos pointed out. “Frank’s — I’m sure you’ve passed it — they have good sandwiches.” He looked at his watch. “I was thinking of going today as well, since I didn’t bring my lunch.”

Shireen jumped at this. “Come with us then!”

“Can you get away?” Stannis asked him.

“Oh, sure, I can take lunch any time. It’s a little early but,” and the warm grin appeared again, the blush all but subsided, “it will be nice to have the company.”

They ended up all getting into Stannis’ car, with Shireen sitting in the back seat and Davos navigating. Frank’s was casual, decorated with newspaper clippings and red-checked picnic tablecloths, the air already a-chatter with patrons. Davos greeted all the waitresses and the bus boy, who called to him raucously from the doors to the kitchen. 

“How’s work?” Davos asked after all three had ordered sandwiches, “I hope it’s gotten better?”

“It has not gotten better, although I appreciate your asking,” Stannis said. Had he complained, the last time he was down here? He couldn’t entirely recall: it was all bound up with the sound of the water and the warmth of the sunshine and he didn’t remember much of what he had said.

“Shireen,” Davos said, “what’s wrong with your dad’s job? Can it be that sitting in meetings all day does not agree with him?”

“Scope creep,” said Shireen promptly, going back to reading one of the articles pinned up on the wall. It was about harbor seals making their way south from the Bay. But Davos looked lost. 

“It’s when a project experiences uncontrolled growth,” Stannis said, his brow furrowing at the thought of the one that awaited him. “When they say it will take so long, and encompass such-and-such, and then people keep adding onto it until it’s virtually unfinishable.”

“Tell him about the worst one, Papa.”

 “There’s a project manager I work with.” Stannis could hear the man’s tones, anxious but unctuous, just in the telling. “He thinks that our department’s work exists to pad his own accomplishments, and once we have met a goal, unerringly thinks of improvements he’d like to see, suggestions that must be accepted and implemented, with little regard for the deadline we had in place ...”

He trailed off as the food arrived. Davos was clearly sympathetic. “I do enjoy it generally,” Stannis said, “but this quarter has been particularly difficult ...”

“Oh, I understand,” Davos said. “We have bad periods down here too. If the state officers come to look around, or if there’s a dead whale washed up on the beach ... it can stink for weeks ...”

 Stannis had a hard time swallowing his bite of sandwich, trying not to laugh. “I suppose,” he said when he had recovered himself, “a rotting whale in your work space is actually worse than interminable meetings.”

Davos, though, looked doubtful. “At least it can’t tell me how to do my job,” he shrugged. 

After that the conversation drifted to Shireen’s classes — particularly science — and Stannis listened while they talked about what she might face in biology next year. She was excited about the marine life block, she said, and he noticed Davos’ face light up. “Oh, that will be great!” Davos said. “I wish they had had that in my science classes in school. By the time you’re done with your grade you’ll be qualified to take my job, probably.

“But speaking of that,” he said, regret clear in his voice, “I’m afraid I need to be getting back.”

Stannis could see Shireen trying to hide her own disappointment and he felt himself in sympathy with her, although of course Davos had to return to work. “We will see you again soon, though,” Stannis said, though which of their spirits he was trying to bolster he had little idea. 

On the way back to the ranger station, Davos kept up his conversation with Shireen while keeping an eye on the roads. “Maybe your class will come here again next year,” Davos said, “left up here, Stannis — and I can give you a tide chart so you can plan what you want to see.” 

The drive was over too quickly, and Davos was almost getting out of the car before he turned to Stannis. “Thank you for coming, again,” he said, “and good luck with that guy.”

“What guy?” 

 “The creep. The scope creep.” 

Shireen burst out laughing and Stannis almost did, and Davos was out of the car before he could say anything else. Stannis waited while Shireen caught her breath. Just as he turned out onto the main road, he caught a glimpse of Davos in the doorway, watching them go, and he wanted to wave back but then Davos was gone.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really enjoyed writing this diversion into (almost) All the Sea-Children, because I never think the elder ones get enough mention in the canon -- ever! And forgive my exclusion of Steff and Stanny. Their presence is sorely missed.
> 
> Also, if you like the premise of this story, all credit goes to the enigmatic fordandfitzroy, who not only handed me the plot on a silver platter but also found me the real-life location of the Storm's End Marine Reserve -- what writer gets so lucky?

Only two days later they came again, and Davos couldn’t suppress the rising sense of satisfaction that they kept returning, even as he wondered why Shireen was there in the middle of a school day.

“Teacher in-service day,” Stannis said by way of explanation. He seemed more cross than usual, his voice tight. “The teachers are required to work on grades or lesson plans or whatever they used to do after school, but the students have the day off.” 

“Papa hates it,” put in Shireen. 

“Ah,” Davos said, trying for sympathetic, then abandoning the pretense immediately. “But I’m glad because that means you came here again.” Although this was mainly directed to Shireen, it seemed like Stannis’ expression lightened slightly at his words; or at least his scowl lessened. Davos was perplexed — Stannis couldn’t be that unhappy just because of a day off school, could he? They set off wandering south, sun at their backs. Shireen, as usual, ran ahead. 

“So do you have any other plans for today—” Davos began, but Stannis cut him off, abruptly. 

“Do you have any brothers, Davos?” 

“No, I was an only child.”

“You’re damned lucky,” Stannis said. “They’re nothing but endless torment.”

Davos waited. He could see Stannis trying to compose himself.

“On Sunday,” he said, “we went to soccer as usual. There’s this ... _woman_. The mother of one of Shireen’s friends. The little girl is nice enough, but her mother is very nearly abusive toward her. Although Shireen says if the girl isn’t being actively beaten, the school can do nothing.” The anger on Stannis’ face matched his tone. “Useless bureaucrats. ... This woman, Cersei Lannister, comes to soccer each weekend and berates her daughter, the team, the coach, other parents ... anyone who gets in her way.”

“That sounds horrible,” Davos said. “The poor girl.”

“Yes. And yesterday, she turned her ire on me.”

Davos lifted an eyebrow. Who in their right mind would ever attempt to attack Stannis Baratheon? And what did this have to do with brothers?

“She walked right up to me and waved her newspaper in my face. ‘I don’t suppose you’ve seen this,’ she said.” Stannis trailed off. 

“What did it say?” 

“It was hardly anything, really. A news brief in the entertainment section, only published at all because of a local angle. It said the stage actor, Renly Baratheon, had been involved in some kind of extravagant party at a penthouse in Highgarden that devolved into such chaos that the police had to come and break it up.”

“Wow,” Davos said. “Did he get in any kind of legal trouble or —”

“I’m not sure. It didn’t say one way or the other and I haven’t heard from him, although I’m sure I will if he is put in prison and the bail is set high enough.” 

Davos wasn’t sure whether this was a joke or not. Stannis went on, bitterly: “It gets worse. The party was evidently held at the home of Loras Tyrell. Ever heard of him?” 

“It’s not ringing a bell.” 

“He’s a baseball player. The star of the Highgarden team. This is not the first time his name has been linked to my brother’s.” Stannis narrowed his eyes angrily. “It’s hard to imagine why the press in that city wants to interfere in their personal lives. But potential criminal charges are another matter. Imagine finding this out in the _newspaper_ from someone who is already looking for any reason to assail my character—” Here a small child’s wail stopped him short. Davos realized, too late, that while listening so intently to Stannis he had walked right into a sand castle in progress. 

The boy was about four, and the woman lying on a towel farther from the shore must have been his mother. Davos stooped to examine the damage: sure enough, the whole structure was in ruins, pail-sized turrets overturned like the place had been sacked by a marauding gang.

“I’m very sorry,” he said to the boy. But Stannis was having none of it.

“This is an extremely unsafe place to build a sand castle,” he snapped at the child. “You are too close to the water and in the path of pedestrians. Besides, life isn’t fair.” 

Just before the boy was about to burst into tears — Davos recognized the scrunched-up face that portended a tantrum — Shireen appeared. “What happened?” she said.

Stannis and Davos both tried to answer at once. “I was an idiot and blundered right into this—” “It was completely in the way, and of course he couldn’t be expected—”

“We’ll fix it,” Shireen said, turning to the child. “I’ll help you. Look, where’s your shovel? We’ll put it a little farther up so that the waves won’t get it. Is this your pail?”

Shireen took the hand of the boy and led him to higher ground, then knelt to start scooping sand. Davos looked again at Stannis, but Stannis was looking out at the water, his brow furrowed. Davos choked down a surprised sound at his own sudden wild impulse to lift his hand to Stannis’ forehead and smooth the worried lines there. “What the hell?” he chastised himself — it must have just been some kind of misdirected comforting instinct, transferred from Shireen or the distraught child whose meltdown she had diverted.

That thought led him to remember he hadn’t yet told them about his sons. There was a nagging idea in the back of his mind that he should try to disengage from this whole situation — today — or as soon as possible. But the wish to spend more time with Stannis and Shireen, on a day when he didn’t think he’d see them for another week, won out. 

They ended up back at Frank’s. After the sandwiches were eaten, while Shireen was still working on her vanilla shake, Davos took out his wallet and flipped through the plastic windows to the pictures, turning it so they could see it across the table. 

“Stannis, you asked me if I had kids,” he said. “But I didn’t get to tell you. Here they are.”

—

"You have five kids?" Stannis was stunned. He couldn't seem to wrap his mind around it. "Five?" 

"Two more and it would be like ‘The Sound of Music,’" Shireen said helpfully.

_Five?_

“What are their names?” asked Shireen. 

 “Dale, Allard, Matthos, Maric ...”

“Merrick?” said Shireen, not rounding off the “a” as Davos had. 

“And Devan.”

“That’s a nice name.” Shireen bit her lip in concentration. “Dale, Allard, Matthew,” she recited back.

“Matthos,” Stannis and Davos said at the same time. 

“Merrick, and Devan.”

Davos smiled — the genuine smile he reserved mainly for Shireen, Stannis had noticed, not the genial grin he gave almost everyone else that could sometimes mask fatigue or distraction. “That’s very good,” he said. “Almost nobody remembers them all.”

“Well, how could they be expected to,” Stannis muttered, but his tone was amused — he was finally starting to have it sink in, and the fact that Davos had somehow fathered five sons with this woman, his ex-wife, still seemed like an astounding number, but was no longer like a wrecking ball to the conscience. He had no idea why it had seemed so at first — or if he had an idea he did not want to delve into it any further.

“What are they like?” Shireen was asking. “What do they like to do? Play sports or ...”

Davos took another sip of his tea. “They’re all very different,” he mused, wringing his tea bag out around his spoon. “Dale is responsible, married young, they want a baby already. He has a good job and we’ve always been proud of him, which I suppose is what he wanted — that oldest child thing I guess.

“Allard is completely the opposite. He’s a year younger than Dale and I doubt he’ll ever settle down. He goes out all night, brings home a different — well, anyway,” he broke off as he caught Stannis’ eye. “Allard never does anything halfway. He says what he thinks the minute he thinks it, and to — and to heck with the consequences.” His eyes sparkled as he talked about his wild child, but he became solemn upon mentioning his third. “Matthos is ... How can I put this, he’s extremely ...”

His trepidation made Stannis brace for the worst. Drunk? Promiscuous? Criminal?

“Well, he’s religious.” Davos said it as though admitting a weakness in his son that he had given up on trying to fix. Stannis had to laugh, bringing up his napkin just in time to try to turn it into a cough.

“That’s terrible,” he said, deadpan as anything, almost forgetting to be Shireen-appropriate in his amusement.

“Yes,” Davos said, without a hint of irony. “We don’t know what went wrong.”

  Shireen sensed the consternation. “What about Merrick?” she asked. 

“Shireen, you aren’t saying it right,” Stannis said. Davos protested, but — “It’s important to get names right. Mare-ic,” he said, looking at Davos, “right?”

 “We actually got it from a book, so it isn’t like we ever heard it out loud. But yes, we say it Maric ...” His pronunciation was more fluid than either Stannis’ or Shireen’s had been. 

“And he’s neither religious nor a partier ...” Stannis surmised. 

“No,” Davos suddenly grew quiet. “Actually we aren’t sure where he is.”

“How old is he?” 

“Sixteen. But he ran away about a year ago. We aren’t sure where. Marya — his mother — called the police and all, and I talked to some of his friends’ parents and people they might know. Eventually a couple of weeks later he called Marya and said he was okay and not to worry, but that he wasn’t coming back. He calls her every month or two ... probably to avoid her putting the cops back on his trail, I would think.”

“So he’s not—” Shireen stopped herself mid-sentence. She looked sad, and Davos looked sad, and Stannis was suddenly frustrated anew that any of this had even come up. 

“Marya thinks,” said Davos, trying visibly to rally, “she thinks he’s really okay. She says she’d know, like she’d just know somehow, if anything had happened to one of her kids.” He was dancing around the words, but Stannis found himself hoping she was right, maternal instinct or whatever it was. There was no reason, no reason at all, for this man to have lost a child. 

Shireen’s mouth tightened in unconscious imitation of her father. “He’ll come back,” she said, stubborn, almost looking like she was going to push back her chair from the table and go find the wayward son herself.

“I didn’t tell you about Devan,” Davos said, sizing up the situation, cheering up again — mostly for Shireen’s sake, Stannis suspected. “He’s about a year older than you. He likes video games. And he plays a lot of soccer.”

“Soccer!” Shireen’s eyes widened. “What position? What’s his favorite club?”

“Club?”

“Team,” Stannis put in. “They say club. I don’t know why.”

“To be honest, I have no idea. But, Shireen, he comes to visit me every Christmas break. Two weeks. Maybe you can meet him and talk soccer.”

“Of course we’re going to meet him,” Shireen said, as though why would it even be a question? Stannis had to agree. It was hard to imagine Davos trailed by a child that belonged to him instead of to a visiting parent at the beach — but even harder to imagine two weeks going by without their seeing him. 

“Oh — of course.” Davos’ agreement was almost instantaneous. “Well, yes. No maybes about it.” 

“That’s only in a couple of months,” Shireen pointed out. “There’s a lot to do to get ready.” Davos and Stannis shared a look — Davos amused, Stannis disquieted.

“What about Matthos? Is he coming too?” she asked.

“No, he’s eighteen ... so he comes when he wants to come.”

“Well, does he?” 

“Shireen, you’re prying.” Stannis felt like the conversation was getting away from him again.

“He has visited me a couple of times since he’s been out of the house,” Davos said, “but he didn’t much enjoy it. I imagine he’ll be back when he wants to try to convert me again.” Despite Davos’ obvious discomfort, Stannis still couldn’t shake off the feeling of wanting to laugh — this man, in Stannis’ admittedly limited experience utterly capable of anything, in fear of his proselytizing eighteen-year-old son. Davos caught the look in Stannis’ face and his eyes crinkled into a smile. “It’s a lost cause, of course,” he said. 

“Oh, of course.”

“We’re all paying the wages of sin here, he says.” 

Stannis stood up from the table, full of diner food and his thoughts. “Earning them too, I imagine,” he said.


	9. Chapter 9

There was beauty everywhere — even in the dullest pieces, even in the most sarcastic ones, or the messiest. There was an elegance in the impractical fashion designs, in the Incredible Hulk clones, in the front yards with every blade of grass meticulously drawn. And in the horses, the horses, the horses. Teaching an art class with twenty fourth-graders, at least two-thirds of whom were girls, you couldn’t avoid it — you were going to see a lot of horses.

In every class there were the horses, the superheroes, the princesses and the white picket fences. Of course, there were also the children behind them — but more important was the work, and the spirit that shone from behind each one — not always a kid, sometimes it was the influence of a parent or sometimes that great unknown force that drove an unassuming person to create something quite out of the ordinary.

Loose grey sand had collected at the bottom of the picture frame, but it didn’t detract, it only seemed to add to the windswept feeling that permeated the final project of Shireen Baratheon, whose face her substitute teacher could not quite conjure up despite having taught the class for the past four weeks. She stood looking at it for a long time before the parents’ open house began, even reaching a finger out to touch one of the shells before drawing it back guiltily. The teacher was not sure she was armed with the right glue to put it back on in case it should fall. 

Shireen’s project was not the most technically perfect, nor even the most creative. But there was something completed about it, something mature and biological and sober about the way she had colored in each salt-and-pepper sand dune and blood-red reef before embellishing them with actual objects from the seashore. She must have gone on an exhaustive hunt for relics or had been there many times — no artifact was gratuitous; each one served a purpose, from the tiniest point of the starfish leg to the seaweed, pressed into a book and brought to class, that twined around the edges of the water. 

There was something about that water, though. It was only a suggestion, an indigo sketch in the background. Most people upon setting out to draw a beach would focus on the waves, then the sky, then maybe spare some thought for the shore and what was to be found on it. In Shireen’s piece, the beach, the actual beach — sand and debris — was the focus.

The teacher was still pondering this when the parents began arriving, puffed with pride, kids freshly washed and beaming, for the open house. Some students — most — gravitated to their own work first, pulling on their parents’ hands. Others, shyer, seemed uneasy in the middle of the room, and the teacher guided those families gently around the room before landing, as if by accident, on the child’s project. And still others, practical-minded, headed right for the snack table.

It was almost an hour before the teacher could stop for a breath and to look around, and when she did, the little girl with the long wavy hair — the quiet one who played soccer — resolved into Shireen Baratheon. Of course, it occurred to her, she had not been able to envision Shireen’s face because it was always hidden by all her hair, which hung in a curtain over her desk and her work for nearly the entire class. There had always been needier students to see to, so Shireen had worked quietly in the background, nearly unnoticed by the teacher until she had turned in this project. There was no room for guilt or remorse — after all, Shireen had accomplished _this_ without her intervention. But in the lull after the initial rush of parents and questions, she made a beeline for Shireen and her father, with her long red dress trailing behind her.

“Welcome,” she said warmly, “Shireen, your project is ... it’s just wonderful. The level of detail, the thought you put into the scene ...”

Shireen disappeared behind her hair again, what was visible of her face suddenly bright pink. “Say thank you,” said her father, and the teacher was about to speak again but she looked up — _up_ , which was unusual enough — and fell silent. The eyes that met hers were a shocking blue, dark and bright at once — like Shireen’s water, she thought confusedly, wondering if she looked as stunned as she suddenly felt. 

“Thank you,” said the girl, as if from very far away. And then, “This is my father.”

“Melisandre,” said the teacher, recovering, holding out her hand.

“Excuse me?” he said. 

“Melisandre,” said Melisandre. “It’s my name. And your name is ...?”

“Stannis Baratheon.” He said it almost as an afterthought. He was very ill-at-ease, Melisandre noticed. She gathered all her charm, enthused about Shireen’s picture, but even this didn’t break through Stannis Baratheon’s stony veneer. It was only when they were descended upon by Jeyne Heddle, her little sister and her mother that he relaxed a fraction.

“Hello, Masha,” he said to the other woman, his terse greeting lost in the sudden chatter of the three girls. 

“Is this Shireen’s? My God, look at it! Jeyne, look at this.” Both Masha and Jeyne looked more proud of Shireen’s work than her father did, Melisandre noticed.

“I’ve seen it, Mama — she worked on it every night while I was practicing at their house, remember?” 

“Practicing what?” Melisandre asked. 

“Oh ... violin. I’m not any good.”

“You are,” said Shireen, and “No she’s not!” argued the sister. 

“Girls!” Masha’s loud voice hushed them all. “I think you all need a cupcake. Jeyne, Willow, run and get me one too.”

“Shireen’s piece,” said Melisandre, “is extraordinary. The inspiration that must have gone into it ... Are you interested in going into art when you grow up?” she asked Shireen.

The girl had gone pink anew. “I don’t know,” she said, and Melisandre could see her retreating again, looking around in a desperate way for Jeyne.

“Or science, right, Shireen?” said Masha. “Marine stuff? With the way you’re always down at the water.”

“I don’t know,” Shireen said again. “Well ... the only thing I know is I want to be ...”

“What?” Melisandre urged.

“Well, maybe a mom,” Shireen almost whispered.

Stannis Baratheon closed his incredible eyes for a bare second at these words. But Melisandre noticed.

Masha laughed. “That’s the usual plan when you’re that age,” she said. “They all want kids before they’ve ever changed a diaper. They think it’s all dress-up and birthday parties.”

Stannis forced a half-smile. “Yes,” he said, his voice artificially light, “well, she’s got plenty of time to decide about her plans. We need to be getting home, though. Shireen, let’s find Jeyne and Willow and say goodbye.” To Masha he said, “I’m sure I’ll see you soon. Good night,” and, with a nod to Melisandre, he turned to follow his daughter.

Melisandre and Masha were left looking at the picture hanging on the wall. 

“You’re a substitute, right?” Masha asked. 

Melisandre gathered her thoughts quickly. “Yes. Their teacher is on sabbatical. Your daughter’s work is excellent too, by the way, I didn’t mean to only focus on—”

The other woman waved these words away impatiently. “Art’s not Jeyne’s thing. Neither is violin, though Shireen is kind to say so.” She grinned crookedly. “We’re not sure what Jeyne’s thing is, actually. My wife and I are just letting her find her own way. Right now we’re happy that she’s a very sweet and supportive girl who likes to try a lot of things. But she can’t draw.” She broke into a laugh. “Shireen though ... she’s incredibly talented. Jeyne takes a lot of pride in being her friend.”

“And Shireen’s father ...” Melisandre said. 

“Stannis, yes. He’s a bit of a one-off.”

“He seemed,” Melisandre continued, feeling uncomfortably gossipy, “to have a sort of — a reaction when Shireen said she wanted to be a mother.”

“Well, she doesn’t have one,” came the startling answer. Then Jeyne and Willow appeared, hands sticky with icing and lemonade, and Melisandre was called over to another family, her hand gripped by one of the students who had latched onto her from day one in the class. 

Later, at home, Melisandre toyed with the stem of her empty wine glass, her book spread out on her lap and forgotten. It was going to take some careful maneuvering to find out what exactly the situation with Stannis Baratheon was, and to avoid disquieting Shireen for the rest of the time she would be in her class. But all that was not enough to put her off the idea. She stood up, feeling her thighs and the palms of her hands tingling. She folded her book; she blew out her red candle; she went to bed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't think there was a single girl I was friends with in elementary school who didn't want to be a mom. Most of them changed their minds after high school, but it's funny to think about — that was just our default answer. Also, have a bunch of new characters!


	10. Chapter 10

One of the girls from soccer had a birthday party Sunday — she was turning 10, so her parents had gone all-out. As he drove Shireen up to the house with the bouncy castle in the front yard and balloons adorning the front porch and walkway, Stannis suppressed a rising dread at what his daughter might expect for her own 10th birthday in a mere six months. Something to ask her later, he resolved, letting her out of the car. 

“Have a good time,” he said, leaning down to hug her goodbye. “I’ll be back for you at six.”

“What are you going to do?” Shireen asked him. “Are you going to do anything fun?”

 Stannis had to smile at her consideration. “Just some errands over in Amberly.” He watched her skip up the brick-paved path to the front door, her gift bag for the birthday girl swinging as she went, and waited until the door opened to admit her before driving off.

North of Summerhall lay Fawnton, where the party was, and one town up from there was Amberly — a bedroom community for Summerhall whose main purpose, so far as Stannis could see, was to house university professors and dot-com CEOs for whom Summerhall housing prices were just unsustainably low. But it was also home to a vast outdoor shopping center that was often the most convenient place to spend a lot of money at once.

In just a few minutes he was there, navigating the sprawling parking lot and its SUVs, strollers and stressed-out parents. He figured he could get his business done quickly and then have time to go home and get some work done before picking up Shireen. That was his first mistake, he told himself ruefully later.

The line for returns or exchanges at the sporting goods store looked short, but Stannis found himself behind a woman who had pieces of merchandise to return without their price tags. Listening to the ensuing exchange, he found himself hard-pressed to say who was more confused, the customer or the clerk. He checked his phone idly, thinking it would be resolved in just a minute, but the minutes stretched into more minutes and the calling over of managers and the raising of voices. Stannis shifted impatiently where he stood. All he had to do was return a pair of ice skates and snow pants that were too small and too large, respectively, but he and the growing line behind him were ignored while the first customer continued to argue. Now the people behind him were growing restive as well. Stannis waited, glowering but silent, for another fifteen minutes until the issue was finally resolved.

His own return should have taken no time at all — everything was in order — but the clerk, flustered, scanned in the code for an exchange instead of a return and then asked where the merchandise Stannis wanted in exchange was. “It’s a return,” he said, blankly. “I just need the money back.”

“Oh! Okay, I’ll have to start over ...”

Stannis sighed and waited.

The computer store posed more problems. There were routers, but they weren’t shelved correctly, and the whole aisle looked rather like a shoe store where people had taken things out of the boxes, had a look, and then put them back haphazardly into other boxes. 

“Neckbeards,” he muttered to himself, just imagining the type of geek — a programmer in stained t-shirt and sweatpants, unshaven, probably living in a basement — who would create such a mess. 

He finally found what he was looking for — after cleaning up the whole section, putting equipment back in boxes and then back in their proper places on the shelves — and made his purchase with a minimum of hassle, but with a growing headache. Only one more store on his internal to-do list ... plus he had intended to look for a Christmas present for Shireen ... but a glance at his watch showed that he had already spent almost two hours. And he hadn’t eaten lunch. He scowled, walking out to the center of the mall, where there were too many fast-food eateries to choose from but he was going to have to do it anyway. Why did everything have to be so difficult? he wondered. Even simple commerce—

His complaint was arrested mid-thought as, looking over the line for the pizza stand and thinking whether a slice would be sufficient for lunch, he caught sight of Davos in the same line. At least, from the back he was pretty sure it was Davos — he stood out somehow, with his long hair, amid the clean-cut yuppies. He seemed out of place, just about as out of place as Stannis felt.

“Davos,” he said, quieter than he meant to — what if he had the wrong person after all? But Davos turned quickly, smiling at Stannis when he saw him, and stepped out of the line to come toward him.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Stannis said quickly, “you didn’t have to lose your place.”

“In the line? It’s fine,” Davos said, waving it off, “no problem. Are you eating here?”

“I was thinking about it.”

Davos moved into the line next to Stannis. “It’s all right for mall food," he said. “What are you doing here today?”

Stannis shook his head. “Wasting copious amounts of time in lines, mostly.” Then he realized, with an unfamiliar sort of embarrassment, how rude that could have sounded. “I had to return a few things to Stark Outfitters — Shireen’s feet grew too big for the ice skates I bought her last season before she even wore them.”

“They’ll do that,” Davos said, and Stannis remembered irrelevantly, again, that the other man had five sons and had probably done all this many times before. Before he could say anything else they had reached the front of the line and were ordering.

Once they had their pizza slices, Davos said, “Where were you going to eat this?”

“One of these tables, I suppose ...”

“There’s a little park right around the corner from that bank,” Davos pointed out. “It might be nicer than the food court.”

Stannis nodded his assent and followed Davos — there was indeed a tiny, hidden park, with two or three benches dotting the shaded grass. He sank down onto one gratefully. 

“In all the times I’ve come to this mall,” he said, between bites of pizza, “I never knew this was here.”

Davos smiled again. “Maybe it’s park ranger radar,” he replied. “I can usually tell where there’s going to be some green space. This is just my second time here though. It’s pretty far from home. ... So what happened in Stark’s?” he asked, picking up the thread of conversation once more.

 “There was someone in line who was causing a problem with a return. Then I went to the computer place and all the routers were out of — oh, it hardly matters,” Stannis broke off suddenly. It didn't seemed important now, with the warm air filtering through the trees and the distant noise of shoppers fading out in favor of the more immediate sounds of birds above them and sprinklers running across the lawn.

Davos asked no more and they finished their pizza and drinks in silence. Stannis knew he should try to be sociable but it was nicer to just sit in the quiet of the park. The silence was comfortable, but then he started to wonder what brought Davos here, all the way from the coast.

“I actually went to Stark’s too,” Davos said. “I needed to get some things for Devan — my youngest son I told you about? He’s coming out here over the holiday break and I told him,” here he sighed, looking worried, “I told him I would try to take him skiing up at Winterfell.”

“Oh, Shireen and I go several times a year,” Stannis said, surprised. “We could probably loan you some equipment — or you could rent it — the best place is in Winterfell town, not the ski areas, they’ll soak you.”

He and Davos fell into conversation about skiing. Davos had never been — he had only been to Winterfell to hike and mountain bike in the summer — and Devan had never even seen snow, growing up as he had in the southern deserts. Davos seemed particularly nervous about the actual skiing part of things and Stannis tried to reassure him that it was easier than it might appear and before he knew it, it was almost time to go pick up Shireen after all.

Driving her home that night, he hardly remembered the slow lines and the annoyances. Instead he told Shireen all about how he had run into Davos at the mall and how he and Devan were going to go skiing. Shireen, sugar-overloaded and exhausted, almost seemed whiny, which was unusual for her. “Why couldn’t I have been with you when you saw him?” she pouted.

“Because you were at a party,” Stannis pointed out.

“Yes, but! ...” She cheered up again like the sun emerging from behind a fast-moving cloud. “Papa! We should go skiing _with_ them! Or they should go with us. When we go over Christmas.”

“I never said we were going over Christmas,” said Stannis, startled. 

 “Yes, but we will, won't we? And we can teach Davos and Devan how to ski. And we can go ice skating and maybe on a dog sled ...” 

Stannis frowned slightly, though the appeal was definitely there. “You don’t even know if you like Devan,” he said. “You don’t like boys at all, in fact. Didn’t you just tell me Myrcella’s brother scared you?”

“It’s her big brother Joff who scares me. Because he’s a jerk and he makes Myrcella cry. Tommen is all right ... for a little kid.” She turned to Stannis, dismissing the Lannisters. “I think it would be a lot of fun to go with Davos. You should ask him.”

“I’ll think about it,” he promised. 

He didn’t really expect to think about it for the entire next week, and Shireen didn’t mention it more than two or three more times, but he found himself pondering her suggestion at odd times anyway — driving home after dropping her off at school, maybe, or staring unseeing at one of his monitors while a process ran, the white-on-black letters and numbers of the code turning to the nighttime snowflakes of Winterfell before his eyes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For locals who want to do the self-guided Elemental tour, I basically took Corte Madera's shopping center, added a smattering of Santana Row and transplanted it all to Atherton, which as far as I know doesn't have any downtown so God knows it needed a mall, right?


	11. Chapter 11

It had been a long time since someone had said his name like that, Stannis reflected later. He had been standing at the downtown Summerhall bookstore’s sale table, looking idly through the history books that were on clearance while Shireen was off in the stationery section looking for stickers for her and Jeyne’s shared and ever-growing collection. There had been a split second of confusion as he imagined he almost felt someone else’s breath on his cheek, or was it his arm? And then: “Stannis,” she had said, practically purring it, he thought with the color rising to his face as he remembered it. He turned sharply; she was not that close, but still closer than most people came when they spoke to him.

It had taken him a moment to draw back his focus and remember where he had seen her. Shireen’s art class, she was the new teacher — but then he couldn’t remember her name.

“Melisandre,” she reminded him, smiling then. “Or you can call me Mel if you wish. It’s good to see you again.”

“Yes, likewise,” said Stannis, still slightly confused. She seemed far out of place, with her waist-length hair, so red it was almost burgundy, hanging around her shoulders and not pulled back like all the other Summerhall women Stannis saw. And though the town was far from conservative, she was dressed more outrageously than most — everything red and flowing, like her hair. She reminded Stannis of some of the girls in the Wicca club at college. He had never known what to say to them, either. She looked at him levelly for a moment.

“I don’t think it’s chance,” she went on, “I had been thinking about you since I saw you and Shireen at the parents' night.”

“She said you appreciated her project,” Stannis said. “She worked hard on it, the collection of—”

“Your daughter is very talented. But what I said was that I had been thinking about _you_.”

“I—,” Stannis stammered, at a loss. “I really don’t know ...” What would Renly say to something like that, he thought wildly. Later he wondered if that was actually the first time in his life he had wished for insight into his little brother’s thoughts about interpersonal relations. Thankfully, a distraction arrived in the form of Shireen. Her hands were full of stickers, and Stannis examined them with great attention, keeping his eyes down, away from Melisandre’s gaze.

Shireen noticed her teacher then, and gave her her shy smile. Stannis had almost started to shed his feeling of discomfiture when Melisandre said to Shireen, “I think you ought to have a Faber-Castell Extra-Fine Artist pen. I’ve noticed your outlines are very precise, and this would only help. Do you want to go see if they have one?”

When Shireen had gone again, Stannis looked at Melisandre. Surely this errand wasn’t just a pretext ... but in the next minute she laid her hand on his arm, and he couldn’t react to that before she had slid it down to his wrist, taking a gentle but firm grip.

“I would like to see you again,” she said, each word quiet but crystal clear, echoing in what he imagined was the silence of the bookstore — could everyone hear her? How could they not? But the bustle of commerce was still going on around them, though Stannis felt rooted to the spot. “Do you have a phone number?” Melisandre prompted. “E-mail?” 

“Oh — yes — here, a card,” Stannis said, reaching into his pocket for his wallet, taking a ridiculously long time, it seemed to him, to find one of his business cards before holding it out to her. When she took it, her fingers — too warm — lingered on his own. 

“You are not otherwise ... occupied,” she said, and Stannis was not sure if it was a question or a confirmation. He shook his head, disconcertedly, and she smiled again — but it was a different smile, a thousand-watt grin full of teeth, for Shireen who had appeared once more, new pen in hand.

“I found it,” Shireen said to them. Melisandre looked, and nodded. “Yes,” she said, “this will be perfect. I look forward to seeing much more of your work.” 

She touched Stannis fleetingly on the arm again, waved goodbye to Shireen, and swept off. Stannis didn’t know he had been holding his breath since Shireen had come back until he let it out. 

“Let’s go pay,” he said to Shireen, unable to help adding wryly, “before we are asked to buy out the entire art department for your endeavors.” 

 

Later, he and Shireen were in the car headed toward Tarth, a town on the coast, not as far north as the Storm’s End beach. Stannis had texted Davos, as a surprise for Shireen, and asked if he wanted to meet them for dinner somewhere. 

“Sounds good, should I come to Summerhall?” Davos had written back, and Stannis had ended up calling him to work out details, mainly concerned that Davos not have to drive so far from home. They had settled on Tarth and a restaurant Stannis found on Yelp, overlooking the water. 

In the parking lot, he pulled up next to the beige hatchback. “Hang on,” he said to Shireen, who was skipping to the restaurant’s door already, “I want to have a look at some of these bumper stickers for once.”

They were a smattering of political statements — Stannis was not surprised to see the sticker supporting the last presidential election’s Democratic candidate — and anti-war sentiments, and that ubiquitous purple “Coexist” logo with each letter formed from a different religion’s symbol. There was a parking permit for a folk music festival from four years ago, up in a national park several hours away. There was one that read “Doing My Part to Piss Off the Religious Right” — Stannis had to laugh at that, even as Shireen tried to hide her giggles that someone would put “piss off” on their car. Finally they gathered themselves enough to go in. Davos was waiting for them in the lobby with his now-familiar grin and wave.

Over dessert, Shireen finally stopped focusing intently on her meal and the stickers she’d brought with her, and looked up at Davos.

“We saw my art teacher at the store,” she told him, “and she told me my outlines were good — at least I think that’s what she meant,” she said, glancing at Stannis for confirmation.

“Yes,” Stannis said, trying to keep his voice even. He had not expected a reminder of the afternoon’s awkwardness after such a long and comfortable meal. “She said they were precise.”

“And that a new pen would make them better,” Shireen went on. But Davos was looking at Stannis with something unnameable in his face and Stannis knew it must be because of his own expression. He felt himself growing red and tense yet again.

“She liked my art project, too,” Shireen said. “The one where I collected all that stuff from the beach? The shells and the sand ...”

“Oh, good,” Davos said, seeming to focus on her with an effort. 

“She’s nice, but a little weird, though. She only ever wears red. Some of the other teachers make fun of her. Once the English teacher wore all red and put her hair down and the other teachers called her ‘Melisandre’ all day.”

“That’s — _what’s_ her name?” Davos asked.

“Melisandre,” Shireen said. “That’s the only name she has. On her first day Jeyne asked if we weren’t supposed to call her Ms. something like all the other women teachers but she said no — Melisandre was the only name she used and we should call her that.”

Davos and Stannis shared a look. “Like Madonna,” Davos said, and Stannis relaxed into a half-smirk. “Or Cher.”

When Shireen had gone to use the restroom, Davos looked at Stannis again.

“So ... Why did you look so weird about that art teacher?”

“Oh Christ,” Stannis said, exhaling, and out it all came in a rush with his breath. “Shireen was in the bookstore in another section and _Melisandre_ shows up and says she’d been thinking about me. Not about Shireen, she made it clear. And she was ... rather demonstrative. Then she asked if I had a phone number or email address so I gave her my card. The whole thing was beyond bizarre.”

“What’s bizarre about it?” Davos asked, his voice gone somehow tight. Stannis glanced at him but his face was composed. “It sounds like she wants to go out with you and isn’t afraid to say it.”

Stannis was at a loss. “I don’t know. It’s just odd. It’s not ... It’s abnormal.”

“It sounds perfectly reasonable to me. Are you going to see her if she asks you?”

“I don’t know,” Stannis said again. 

Though Davos’ tone was uncharacteristically tense and he was quieter than usual through the end of dessert and the short walk all three of them took down to the beach afterwards, Stannis still felt slightly more in equilibrium than he had earlier that day. He breathed in the sea air and heard Davos’ and Shireen’s voices blending with the incoming tide, and he tried to stop worrying about Melisandre and the terrifying prospect of going out on a date with her. What on earth would they talk about? Shireen? Fourth-grade art in general? ... _Software?_

He forgot about the problem when they came back to him, both laughing, feet and cuffs wet and sandy. 

“It came in faster than we thought,” Davos said, leaning down to wring out the hems of his jeans. Shireen hopped, shaking sand first off one shoe and then the other, and Stannis felt his mood lightening again. When they got back to the parking lot, Shireen hugged Davos. Across her, Davos brushed Stannis’ arm briefly — nothing like Melisandre’s light but demanding touch earlier, just enough to say goodbye. They drove off in separate directions, Shireen already half-asleep by the time they were over the Stormlands ridge.

He ended up talking to Davos twice more in the next week — to propose Shireen’s idea about the ski trip, which was enthusiastically received, and then to sort out the details after Davos had confirmed with Devan’s mother. Shireen was almost beside herself with excitement when he told her the plans were coming together for the winter holiday break, just two weeks away now. They ended up meeting at another Tarth eatery — a sushi place this time — where Shireen tried to explain to Davos the basics of skiing, and Davos and Stannis tried without much success to keep their sake consumption down to a dull roar. They ended up having to walk through nearly the entire downtown of Tarth and to the water before either felt quite sober enough to get back in their cars.

"My face hurts," said Davos, "I've been laughing too hard." That set Shireen off again and even Stannis smiled, shaking his head. "You people are not going to be able to do this on the ski lift," he said. "You'll shake it too much and fall off."

“So you'll have to keep me on it,” Davos said, but he didn’t say it to Shireen — Stannis was sure he wasn’t talking to him either, but there was something about his tone, deceptively light, floating out over the air and then whirling back to catch Stannis by surprise. The next moment he blinked it away, but it was not so easily dismissed: later, he wondered why he was thinking of snow and a swaying chair lift.

While Stannis was out that night, Melisandre called him twice and left messages — once to see if he wanted to get together, then an hour later proposing a place and a time. Her voice was low and intimate into the machine. 

Stannis had to think what to say: he had told Davos the absolute truth, that he didn’t know what he would do. It had been a long time since any woman had so overtly expressed interest in him, let alone one as glamorous and exotic as Melisandre. She was very attractive, that much went without saying — he thought of her dark eyes and long hair, and the way her red dress swept elegantly over her tall, full frame — but there was an odd kind of distance between himself and her beauty; it was as if he were viewing it through a picture frame, behind glass. Cursing himself for a coward, he ended up calling her when he knew she was teaching. In the voice mail, he said he was going to be very busy until after the holidays but that perhaps they could meet up then. He did not hear from her again, and the disappointment he expected never really came, yielding instead to a hazy, confused sort of relief.


	12. Chapter 12

The tenor of the days evened out, with Stannis and Shireen’s visit to the beach bookending every Saturday, and the week usually — but not always — punctuated by Stannis coming alone, or calling to abruptly ask Davos if he wanted to get together with them for a meal after work. Those days had a resonance of their own, deepened by something Davos wasn’t sure he could name. So when the phone rang while he was far out to shore, on a misty late afternoon, he half-expected it to be Stannis and smiled to himself with just a glimmer, somewhere distant, of anticipation.

Instead, it was his second son. 

“Dad!” Allard’s voice on the shaky connection was almost alarmed, and Davos’ mind immediately flew to Maric. Had there been news? 

“Where the hell have you been?” his son demanded. 

Davos had to grin at the role reversal of it all. “Where have I been when?”

“I called you Saturday, and then I think I called you ... Thursday night?”

“Are you sure? Did you leave a message?”

“No, but ... You always pick up.”

“Well, Thursday I don’t know. Saturday I was working.”

“Not at night,” said Allard accusingly. 

Davos felt himself reddening. “I was out with a friend I suppose.”

“Oh!” Allard seized on this. “A _special_ friend? Where’d you meet her?”

“No, just a friend-friend,” Davos said, feeling more and more the teenager. “And not a her. We go out with his daughter. She’s Devan’s age and she came to the reserve once and got lost, so I brought her back ...”

Allard sounded incredulous. “You rescued this guy’s daughter and now you’re all ... hanging out all the time? Where do you go?” 

“We go to eat, sometimes to other parks ...” 

“And the daughter is always there?”

Why was this becoming so much of an inquisition? “She’s not always there. He’s a friend, Al.”

He could hear Allard snort. “Guys don’t just have _friends_.”

“What does that mean? You only ever hang out with women?”

“No, I go out with guys ... and their girlfriends. And my girlfriends.”

“What about single guy friends? Don’t you have any?”

“Yeah, and we watch football. Or we play video games. We don’t go out to eat. That’s like date-type stuff.”

“The difference is, we’re _adults_ ...” Davos hoped his tone was quite pointed enough.

“I don’t care what you do, Dad,” his son said, parental again. “I’m just telling you what it sounds like.”

“What does it sound like?” Davos was suddenly combative, over it, done with this ridiculous conversation. “Christ, Allard. Sometimes I think you’re still twelve years old.”

The grin in Allard’s voice was unmistakable. “I said, I don’t care what you do. But it’s a good thing you told me and not Matthos. My God ...!” 

“Let’s not get him started,” Davos said, a warning in his voice. “Is that all you wanted to know? Where I’ve been?” 

“Yeah basically. Gotta keep tabs on my old man sometimes ... Sounds like I had a good reason to check up on you.”

“Jesus,” muttered Davos, hanging up after a quick excuse. He sat stunned for a minute. _Did that exchange just happen?_

In the inside cover of the newspaper’s sports section, the television schedule was printed. Flipping to the page, he scanned quickly: the Stags were playing the Krakens the next Sunday. Shireen had said last weekend that soccer was done for the season, so maybe they would be free — before he could think about how ridiculous this all was, he had texted Stannis asking if they wanted to come watch the football game. Stannis wrote back almost immediately, “Yes, we’ll be there.” _There, Allard_ , he thought savagely. _We’re going to watch sports. Happy?_

Oh God, he realized, he had to clean the condo. He looked around helplessly. And where would they all sit? What was he thinking? Couldn’t they just go to a bar ... well, no, that wouldn’t be for the best — not with Shireen. With that justification to bolster him, he put it out of his mind. Of course they had to come over. 

 

The fact that Davos had absolutely no interest in or knowledge of football didn’t occur to him until much later — until, in fact, Shireen and Stannis had arrived and were ensconced in his tiny living room in front of the television, Shireen in an armchair and Stannis and Davos on the sofa. Stannis was more of a fan than Davos had expected. “They shouldn’t have benched Waters,” he grumbled darkly, “what do you think?”

To that Davos had no answer. He shrugged in a noncommittal way, turned away to the kitchen to get another beer. When he got back, Shireen and her dad were arguing spiritedly. “Clayten is _fast_ ,” Shireen was saying. “A fad,” dismissed Stannis. 

“Davos, what do you think? Clayten Caswell or Waters?” Shireen asked.

“Oh, Waters, definitely.” Davos didn’t miss a beat. “Sorry, kiddo, but ... fast isn’t everything.”

“Exactly,” Stannis said, emphatically. “Waters is a complete player.”

Davos didn’t trust himself to say anything else, but lifted his beer in a toast to Waters — whoever he was — and settled himself back into the sofa.

 

Hours later, the coffee table was stacked with paper plates, but the beer bottles were not so easily corralled. Davos had had, he knew somewhere in the back of his mind, too much to drink, but it was his own place after all. And it was the first time Stannis had seen his house. And when the Stags had started running the ball down the field Shireen had screamed and Stannis had pounded his fist on the sofa cushion. And Davos had watched, wide-eyed, as Stannis appeared to drop his reserve all at once to rise and shout down a bestriped official whose verdict he disagreed with. Stannis flopped back down triumphant on the sofa, closer to Davos than before it seemed, when the call ended up going his way after all. 

Shireen didn’t seem fazed in the least by these fireworks. On the contrary, she was asleep, curled up in the chair, face and hands dusty with potato chip crumbs that Stannis, for once, wasn't trying to clean up. The television was still on and the announcers in suits were discussing the game in minute detail — including the Waters vs. Caswell controversy — but their voices were starting to blur and blend along with the darkness falling outside as Davos watched Stannis in a sort of tipsy astonishment. It was just, all that forcefulness, where had it come from? Davos found himself inexplicably looking forward to the next game, realizing with a pleased jolt that it was probably just next week.

“You’re not a fan,” Stannis said suddenly. 

“Oh,” Davos said, trying to collect himself, “Well, I suppose I’m not terribly familiar ...”

“But you invited us to watch it.”

“I thought, um, you guys might enjoy it.” Davos’ focus was all out of whack and he desperately willed himself, _Make sense, please_. “I mean, a lot of people around here like ..."

Stannis cut him off, appearing to grasp the situation all at once. He had had as much to drink as Davos, but looked well in control — another realization that made something in Davos lurch and spin. He was drunk, or at least had been, or was on the way there, and Stannis was looking at him like ... maybe like he was one of those oppositional referees he had been yelling at — with somewhat less anger, if the same amount of intensity. 

“It’s all right,” he said, his voice, calm, at odds with the look in his suddenly quite darkened eyes. Davos had a vague, tilting sense that Stannis was about to say something else, or maybe move forward, but he drew back, glancing at Shireen. He seemed to retreat into himself once again, and Davos felt the loss. “I'm glad we're here.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For the record, I was Team Kaepernick like Shireen. But I figured Stannis for an Alex Smith guy. Loyalty and all that.


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is more of an interlude than a real chapter, kind of like how elevators don't stop at the 13th floor? But you know there's got to be _something_ there anyway.

Jeyne Heddle, already as tall as her mother Masha but only half as wide, was practicing the violin. Her sister Willow couldn't stand listening to it — and Stannis tended to agree with the girl — but Shireen seemed to find it a comforting background noise and so it was fairly often that Stannis would emerge from his office to find them in the den or Shireen's bedroom, Shireen curled up reading or doing homework or drawing while Jeyne forced tortured notes from the instrument. When this had begun, Masha had cornered Stannis one day when she was collecting Jeyne for dinner and demanded to know whether he was sure he didn't mind the commotion. 

"I don't notice it much in my office, with the door closed," he had told her. "But Shireen likes to listen to it, so it's no problem for her to practice here."

"Shireen is an unusual girl," Masha said with her wide, toothy grin and laugh that veered dangerously into the territory of a bray. "I guess that's why she and Jeyne get along so well; that and their uncommon circumstances."

Stannis was still pondering the meaning of that — the only thing he could think was while Shireen had no mother present, her best friend had two — when the squeaks from the violin upstairs suddenly began to resolve themselves into what could almost become a tune. Stannis recognized it from his brother's music lessons when they were kids. He himself had always been more into computers and math and had never pursued any kind of musical education, but Renly was forever picking up instruments, joining choirs, taking a few lessons here and there whenever his parents could afford it. Stannis wasn't jealous — Steffon and Cassana had kept him well-equipped with old machines to take apart and microscopes and even computers — but he had always wondered just how two people from the same family could be so different.

But then he remembered Davos' sons — all as different from each other as five nights and days, yet somehow all a little like Davos himself, from what he said about them — and decided it wasn't so far out of the ordinary after all.

Thinking of Davos brought on the inevitable overwhelm combined with a strange sort of warmth in his chest and limbs that, although it occurred with some regularity, Stannis had not quite become used to. Though he would have rather sat down somewhere comfortable and let his mind go, instead he busied himself around the living room and kitchen, still wondering what Davos was doing and what he would say about Jeyne, about Masha's comment on the daughters' "circumstances," and about his day in general — what had the beach been like, who had visited? Was it clear or foggy? What had Davos eaten for lunch? These minutia were generally anathema to Stannis — who cared what someone had for lunch, it was over now — but with Davos everything, however trivial, took on a layer of depth and connection. 

That was it — connection, Stannis realized with a kind of shock. When Davos spoke to him it was not just filling in the spaces of life with small talk, because they could be silent just as easily. It was as though he actually valued Stannis' perceptions and his experiences, how different they were from Davos' own, and how startlingly similar in spots.

Jeyne's song continued, thready and unwinding, and Stannis felt himself almost in sympathy with a violin string — out-of-tune, vibrating and trying and somehow, sometimes, hitting the right note. And when he thought of when he felt most at peace, with the most clarity, he knew without hesitation that it was when he was with Davos.

With an increasing sense of awareness Stannis started to think it may actually pose a risk to his suddenly precarious sense of himself and the world to continue spending time with Davos. But the thought of ending their friendship made him feel ill, as if he had been knocked backwards against a wall. Taking a deep breath he told himself nothing had actually changed, that such thoughts did not mean he had done anything yet, and that they still had this trip up to Winterfell with Devan coming up. He resolved to see that through and what came of it before projecting any further into the future. 

Upstairs, Jeyne was winding down, tuning and retuning. He could hear Shireen's laugh, and was relieved, feeling they had all had enough, for now, of skating on the thin line between transparency and confusion.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The song Jeyne is trying to play is "Go Tell Aunt Rhody."
> 
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YEAs5uycops


	14. Chapter 14

Winter arrived with the lashings of rain and wind that gave the Stormlands area its name, and with it came Devan Seaworth, a tanned 10-year-old who reminded Stannis of Davos at once entirely and not at all. He wondered if he and Shireen shared the same unconscious expressions, without ever knowing it, the way Davos and his son seemed to.

Devan was dutifully shy at first, especially around Shireen, and though she had been eager to meet this youngest version of Davos, she withdrew into herself to the point where Stannis thought it might be a good idea to call the whole Winterfell trip off. But then something had happened to galvanize them and Stannis wasn’t ever entirely sure what it was, except that it had to do with Edric Storm, a loud, black-haired boy at school whom Stannis had never really liked and whose actual parentage was a matter of some debate. 

Stannis managed to get parts of the story on the evening that Shireen and Jeyne came home from the last day of school before the holiday break. With Stannis stuck on an international conference call, Davos and Devan had gone to meet Shireen after school so Devan could check out the soccer fields. They’d stayed to kick the ball around and Edric had jealously confronted Devan about why he thought he could be such good friends with Shireen all of a sudden, coming from “the South,” he had sneered as though his own upbringing was as genteel as King’s Landing. And then Shireen had seemingly erupted — although it fell to Jeyne and Davos to tell this part of the story because Shireen and Devan refused to discuss it at all — and told Edric in no uncertain terms where he could take and stick those comments. They had all made up in the next hour, but by the end of it Devan was firmly under Shireen’s protection, and Jeyne made sure everyone knew it.

“What would you have done if Shireen hadn’t stood up for him?” Stannis asked Davos over dinner, while the kids were in the kitchen haggling over ice cream and toppings. 

“Me? Nothing,” Davos said. “Unless this Edric kid was packing.”

“Packing?”

“Heat. A weapon. Gun or something.”

“Well, of course not — he’s nine years old,” Stannis said, alarmed. This was Summerhall, not Flea Bottom. “But you weren’t going to get involved at all?”

“No. Devan can take care of himself.”

“What if they’d gotten into a fight?”

  “Then they’d get into a fight,” Davos shrugged. “Devan’s been in plenty before. So have all my other boys. They don’t need me to referee.”

Stannis could only shake his head — half in respect, half in dismay — and thank the gods he’d been blessed with only one girl, and a pacifist one at that, although he couldn’t suppress his steadily growing pride thinking of her standing up to that loud-mouthed boy in defense of Davos’ son.

Devan, it turned out, would have to take extra tutoring when he got back to school because he was behind in almost every subject except science. “The only subject I could have helped him with, and he’s ahead of me in it,” Davos said ruefully. “Marya wants me to make him study over break, but I can’t make him understand it.”

Shireen stepped in again, with an assist from Jeyne, and in the week before they left for Winterfell the three of them could often be found in the rainy back yard playing soccer and talking about their reading for English class, or walking along the Storm’s End beach and discussing it. And when Shireen was out of her depth on Devan’s math problems, Stannis took over. 

“You don’t have to do this,” Davos protested one late night after Stannis and Devan emerged from Stannis’ home office with bleary eyes and hands smudged with pencil. 

“I don’t mind,” said Stannis. “I’m glad to help.” He had to turn away then when the sudden look in Davos’ eyes seemed to shade into something beyond the grateful. “It’s just math,” he said, roughly, going back into the office to carry out Devan’s books and the notebook they had filled up. 

 

That weekend they left for Winterfell. It was a beautiful day in Summerhall and even bright and sunny at Davos’ condo on the beach, where the rain had so recently scoured the landscape for weeks. Devan looked doubtfully at the sky.   “Are you _sure_ there’s going to be snow?” he said.

“There’s always snow,” replied Shireen. “You’ll see. One minute it will be sunny and then the next we’ll be in the mountains and you’ll look out the window and see snow falling.”

She was right, and Devan wanted to stop the car at the first rest area in the foothills to go out and play in it, and run the snow through his fingers. “I’ve never seen it,” he said. “This is pretty cool.”

“I told you there would be snow,” Shireen said smugly. That set off the first of dozens of snowball fights, even with the meager supply gathered from the tops of the grass. 

Two hours later, Shireen and Devan were asleep in the back of the SUV Stannis had borrowed from the Heddles, with the remains of their sub sandwiches between them. Night was falling as Stannis drove into the tiny town of Winterfell, which was nestled along the western shore of Deep Lake. As he drove, he heard Davos’ sharp intake of breath next to him. He remembered Davos had been up at this lake during the summer, but never in the winter when the cold, clear air made the stars sparkle and the moon light up the whole vast circle of water so that it looked like it was illuminated from somewhere in the core of the earth. 

“Jesus,” Davos said, in a whisper through his teeth. “Look at that.” 

Stannis said nothing, but he glanced at Davos out of the corner of his eye and had to smile at the amazement in his face. At the north end of town he turned onto the road up to the ski area; in another half hour they would be at the house. He drove steadily along the rough road while Davos sat silent next to him, and the stars glittered gaudily overhead.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's [a picture](http://onehotsummer.tumblr.com/image/53762129301) of the lake at night. (Not my photo. I wish!)


	15. Chapter 15

Shivering on a stalled-out ski lift, Davos mentally checked off his mistakes. Didn’t wear glove liners; didn’t wear the right socks; wore too heavy a sweater and not heavy enough of a base layer; put on the wrong hat; ever thought any of this was a good idea. As the chair swayed vaguely in the wind, he added “didn’t take Dramamine” to that list. Stannis, next to him, was characteristically silent and Davos wondered when his temper would flare, as it often did when Stannis had to wait. This roiled his stomach even more, although he thought if Stannis did lose his temper, there was a chance the lift would move again, even the machinery submitting in the face of his ire. 

But Stannis was calm, as still as the treetops they hovered over. Davos watched him without turning his head — that would require too much movement, and any movement might shake the chair, and that could be bad. So he watched Stannis sideways, his gaze hidden by his sunglasses. Another gust of wind shook the lift, bringing some stinging snow with it, and Davos quavered accordingly, wondering how the hell this bleak, harsh place could be in the same state as the sun-warmed sand he had left a day ago. The frigid weather actually seemed to enliven Stannis, whose normally pale face had an unmistakable flush to it. Whether it was windburn, sun or just being on vacation, the effect was quite transformative, Davos found. When they were skiing — even on the bunny slopes where Davos struggled to get his feet under him — Stannis had looked like some kind of Nordic idol, his movements strong and easy on skis compared to the usual faint discomfort with which he moved through the world. When on foot Davos felt capable and solid on any terrain, but trying to slide downhill on two thin fiberglass slabs was something out of his experience. 

But he tried, because Devan was having such a good time in the snow, because Shireen was as confident in the wintry weather as her father, and — if he had to be honest — because he was quite fascinated with the way Stannis seemed to be suddenly in his element; as if, a creature carved of ice or molded of snow himself, he was at last somewhat content. 

The reverie distracted Davos for a few minutes but didn’t actually warm him. A violent shiver ran through him, he made an unconscious noise between his teeth, and Stannis broke his stare out over the trees and the snowy hillside to look at Davos. His voice was steady, as though he weren’t cold at all. “Are you all right?” he asked.

 “A little chilly actually,” Davos managed, keeping the chattering of his teeth out of his voice as much as he could. 

As casually as if they were sitting on a seaside bench, and not in an unguarded chair forty feet in the air, Stannis reached into the inside pocket of his coat and drew out a flask, the silver of it flashing in a sunbeam. He unscrewed the top and handed it to Davos, who negotiated unwinding his arm from the chair’s back before taking it. Davos took a sniff, then a long swallow. He held back a cough. “Scotch?” he asked.

“It will warm you.”

Dutifully Davos tried to think warming thoughts. After Stannis drank, Davos took another long gulp and swayed with the chair, wondering whether it would be a soft landing if he happened to fall. Just as he was tempting fate by actually glancing down, the lift started up again with a lurch. He gasped and clutched at the cold metal bar to his side, remembering just in time to hold onto his ski poles as well, and he felt Stannis’ arm come around him and his hand settle warm and steady on his shoulder. “All right?” he asked again.

“As long as I don’t fall out." Though there were many layers of Gore-Tex and nylon and down and wool between them, Davos had the sense that his skin was burning where Stannis had laid his hand. A hot sudden flush suffused his neck and face, and he felt the gently eddying snowflakes melting on his skin. Stannis beside him was solid, a hard defense against uncertainty and frostbite, a kind of small fire in the wilderness that Davos was inescapably drawn to. But whether he felt more like a moth or a mammal he was not sure. Would he burn up if he got too close or would he be safe in the circle of warmth?

“You’re not going anywhere,” Stannis told him, tightening his grip on Davos' shoulder as the lift sloped uphill, swooping over evergreens festooned with Mardi Gras beads and beer cans that flashed in the sun. Davos nodded, tried to look confident, but Stannis kept hold of him almost until they had to ski off the chair and land finally on solid if slanted ground before beginning the long windy descent. 

—

Shireen and Devan were chattering too much to notice how quiet Stannis was; they had tales of ski lessons and lunch and ice skating to share and they talked all the way back to the house and through dinner preparations. Shireen had hardly needed a lesson — she had been skiing almost since she could walk, thanks to Stannis’ lone hobby — but she’d wanted to take the class “to make sure Devan was okay,” she said. Devan repaid this courtesy by pelting her with hundreds of snowballs; Stannis watched them playing on the snowy front yard outside, Shireen’s screams carrying up to the patio where he stood over the grill, holding his hands over the coals to warm them while he cooked. Davos had gone to shower and change and Stannis worried. Had he gone too far up there, on the windy mountain? “You’ll have to keep me on the lift,” Davos had said that night in Tarth after the sushi bar, but maybe he hadn’t meant it like that. But what other way was there? If he was really worried he’d fall off ... But had Stannis somehow made him uncomfortable? God, his brain was running in circles, faster than Shireen and Devan chasing each other deliriously around the yard. 

Suddenly everything exploded in freezing white wetness: a snowball to the face, a direct hit. Blindly he wiped at his eyes. If that was Devan, he thought, the kid has an arm like a cannon; he ought to forget soccer and try out for the baseball team — “I’m sorry,” he heard the laughter of Davos, very close to him, “are you okay?”

“Where the hell did you come from,” Stannis grumbled, but he was smiling anyway, his eyes blurry and the snow sizzling on the grill. 

“I don’t give away my position,” said Davos. “Have I ruined dinner?” 

Stannis poked at the foil packets, opening one up carefully. The smell of salmon, cilantro and lime wafted up. “If you have, I can’t tell. Can you go get Devan and Shireen? It’s almost ready.”

Davos started to head back into the house, then turned again. 

“Hang on,” he said. He reached out and curled a finger behind Stannis’ ear, into his hair. Stannis’ breath caught painfully in his chest, and he couldn’t help the sudden stutter of his pulse. “You still have snow on you.” 

Davos brushed his fingers through Stannis’ hair briefly — too briefly — Stannis was on the point of leaning into the touch but then Davos pulled back.

“Okay, you’re good now,” he said. Then he went inside, returning in a minute with Shireen and Devan. Stannis pulled himself together with an effort. It was such a small thing, just politeness really, a split-second of contact. But despite all his rationalizing and all his attempts at distractions, he couldn’t stop remembering it.


	16. Chapter 16

After a day and a half of lessons — Devan learning from a teacher and Davos taking his chances with Stannis — they were finally all four ready to ski together beyond the bunny slopes. The weather had cleared again, and the sky was blue and dry over the snow-capped mountains. The sun melted the snow off the treetops and the roofs of the cafes and condos at the resort, and everyone started to worry about the base on the ski runs. Shireen stared out at the sky as if willing it with her gaze to start snowing. But it stayed clear, a bluebird day, all the lift operators called it, and they all sweated down into the collars of their regulation down coats.

Davos took off his jacket and skied in his sweater, with the t-shirt and the thermal underneath it, and Devan took off his stocking hat and his goggles and let his ears turn pink in the wind, and Stannis shed a few base layers and folded them neatly into a locker. And Shireen looked anxiously up and hoped for a snowfall.

When they reached the top of the Sky Chair, disembarking at 10,000-plus feet up, Davos tried to decipher the map with the blue and black lines spiralling down from the top of the lift — at least he thought he was looking at the top. Nothing made less cartographic sense, he was finding, than a ski map that tried to render in two dimensions something that could only be understood in three. The lifts seemed to cross valleys on the map that weren’t there in person, or vice versa. He stood staring at it and just hoping he could avoid getting himself and Devan stuck on an “experts only” run. When he finally looked away from it a minute later, he couldn’t see the others. 

“Dev—” he said, turning first one way and then another until — “oh my god,” he finished, on a long, awed breath. Stannis, Devan and Shireen were east of him, having traversed a quick flat space, but they were all facing away from him looking at ... something Davos couldn’t quite take in for a few moments.

Where they stood, the snow was blazing white with the sun reflecting off it, but it was quite obviously still winter. But to the east, there was a clear vista down into the flats, and it was like looking at the landscape of the Southwest. It was dusty brown, divided into agricultural squares and circles, with stripes of red clay peeking up through the dirt. 

“How ...” Davos started, when he had joined them, breathless, “What _is_ that?”  

“Nevada,” Stannis said. “You can see all the way down into the Great Basin. It’s fifty miles away at least, but on a day like this ...”

“Look, Dad,” Devan interrupted. “It’s like the desert. Right there. It’s like we could ski down into it.”

“You couldn’t,” Shireen began, but then Devan bent to form another snowball and she skied deftly around behind Stannis to use him as a shield. Meanwhile Davos couldn’t stop staring out at the naked plain. It seemed much closer than fifty miles away, and farther away at the same time. He felt like he was standing at a great height on top of the world, looking down at another civilization, almost — life and growing things and _summer_ going on far below him. He thought about taking a picture but it would be no use. The landscape there could not be captured, it could only be remembered.

“It’s pretty amazing, isn’t it?” He turned at the voice and Stannis stood nearby, but Stannis was looking at him and not out at Nevada. Davos couldn’t respond, so taken was he still with the sight before him. “I know,” Stannis went on. “The first time I saw it I couldn’t believe it either.”

“It’s _right there_ , you know?” Davos said, finally finding some words. “It hardly seems as far as you said.” 

“But then it seems farther than that, too,” said Stannis. Davos looked at him quickly and nodded. That was exactly what he meant. It was hard to tear himself away from the view, but Shireen and Devan were impatient. 

“We’ll take the ridge trail,” Stannis decided, “it says it’s an intermediate run on the map, but really it’s easy. Don’t go too far ahead, Shireen—” but it was no use, she had already sped off, grinning back at Devan who was still trying to aim his skis in the right direction and keep the tips of them from getting crossed. 

“All right?” Stannis asked Davos, and Davos nodded and poled off after him. When Nevada disappeared, Davos was rewarded with an equally striking sight: Stannis and Shireen skiing almost in a synchronized pattern, Stannis following Shireen’s graceful turns down the wide parts of the run. Their tracks together created a double-helix effect in the snow, marred seconds later by the Seaworths’ clumsier tracks as they came behind. 

When they all stopped along the treeline of the slope, Davos felt his face glowing with sun and wind and happiness. He resisted the urge to throw another snowball at Stannis — what on earth would happen this time if he had to touch him again to clear snow from Stannis’ face, even with the kids there, he didn’t know — it had been hard enough to pull his hand away the night before. When he chanced to look at Stannis he could almost tell he was thinking about it too, his face suddenly serious and faraway. His eyes said something to Davos but Davos wasn’t quite sure what it was, and then Shireen and Devan were off again down the hill and Stannis slid his sunglasses back down over his face and followed. Davos took a deep breath — the air was still cold enough to sting his throat, bringing him back to reality — and watched Stannis for just another few seconds before skiing down himself. 

After the day’s last run, the four of them trooped back to the rental house, exhausted and hot under all the winter gear. They must have just gotten back into cellular range when Stannis’ phone started buzzing incessantly. “What the hell,” Stannis frowned at it. Then he cursed under his breath.

“Everything okay?” Davos asked. 

Stannis’ jaw was clenched, his mouth just a thin line of exasperation. “For some values of okay. But I’m going to have to work a bit this evening.”

“I can make dinner,” Davos reassured him, “we’ll find something to do, a puzzle or whatever. Don’t worry. Just do whatever it is you need to do.” 

The surprised gratitude that dawned in Stannis’ face at this could rival Nevada’s striking landscape, Davos thought in somewhat of a daze. It softened and opened Stannis’ expression and Davos wondered what was so shocking about what he’d said, but there was not much time to ponder it in the bustle of feeding two hungry kids and himself. By the time they were all fed, cleaned up and settled in front of the television — Shireen drawing, not really watching — Davos had nearly forgotten it.

—

A flurry of emails, escalating into text messages and even a panicked voice mail, kept Stannis sequestered in his room, working on his laptop at the tiny desk for three hours while Davos and the kids watched hockey. This was another influence from Devan, who, alone among Davos' sons, had a seemingly bottomless appetite for any kind of televised sporting event. Behind the closed door Stannis could hear the drone of the TV and the occasional whoop from Devan, but the noise didn't really bother him — it was comforting in its way, domestic life going on unimpeded outside while he turned his mind toward code that hadn’t been looked at for, it seemed, decades. He muttered invective at the imbeciles who had left this mess undocumented and un-annotated for someone else to deal with, and that someone was _him_ , on his vacation, even. If he didn't enjoy solving these kinds of problems so much he might even be irritated.

It was long after bedtime when he emerged, eyes bleary and joints protesting, but the sight that met him took his breath away and made his heart thump painfully for a beat. Everyone was asleep on various parts of the black leather sectional sofa, with the television casting their faces in strange blue and white light. Stannis switched it off, and now they were illuminated only by the low flames in the fireplace — there was one log left and after it was burned the fire would go out.

Devan was sprawled against his dad, in a position that looked awkward and painful but was probably perfectly natural for a ten-year-old boy who had worn himself out skiing and playing in the snow all day, then shouting at sports all evening. His face was bright red, evident even in the dim light. Sunburn, Stannis thought ruefully. 

Shireen was curled up in a blanket in the corner of the couch, holding her pillow, with her notebook still open and a pencil fallen to the floor. Her hair had come half out of its long braid and was fanned out around her face. Stannis' eyes softened as they always did watching Shireen sleep, her breathing quick and even.

With a furtive feeling as though he had been saving something, Stannis finally let himself look fully at Davos, who was stretched out with his legs up on the coffee table. Davos had tucked a throw pillow between his neck and the back of the sofa, and his face was half-turned against it, the hair he was always brushing back falling unhampered into his eyes. He had shed his sweater — it was flung over the sofa's arm — and his t-shirt, displaying some emblem Stannis did not recognize, was tight against his tanned arms and his chest. Stannis had relaxed into a fond calmness watching Shireen and Devan sleep, but felt his breathing constrict again to look at Davos recumbent, resting easily. He let his eyes wander greedily down Davos' body, taking in the clean lines of his chest and stomach, his soft and faded jeans, his bare feet, one crossed over the other on the table. Sweeping his gaze back up to Davos' face again, he let it linger on Davos' parted lips, with his own mouth slightly open to get more of the oxygen that suddenly seemed to be in short supply. When had this happened; where had this come from? Was it because of yesterday on that broken chairlift or had it been building for far longer than that? _You know that_ , he answered himself. He swallowed hard and shifted where he stood, cursing as a floorboard underneath him creaked faintly. Davos opened his eyes.

His face was flushed where it had lain on the pillow, and when he spoke his voice was low and sleep-roughened.

"Work all sorted out?"

Stannis nodded, cleared his throat. "I'm sorry to have been so long," he said, looking from Shireen to Devan. 

"We were fine," Davos said, with a drowsy smile. "But we'll all be sorry in the morning if we stay here." He yawned and stretched his arms above his head, and his shirt rode up above the waistband of his jeans, revealing a glimpse of skin that tempted Stannis almost beyond the bounds of his self-control. He wanted badly to reach out, to lay a hand or his fingertips on the bare skin, and he didn’t even know why. 

Disturbed by the movement, Devan stirred and woke, but just as quickly flopped over and fell back asleep. Davos laughed quietly and the moment was lost. Disappointment and relief tore at Stannis in equal, vicious measure.

Once he had recovered himself, he bent over Shireen, carefully placing her notebook on the table and picking her up as easily as if she were still a toddler. "Good night," he whispered to Davos, retreating, carrying Shireen to her room.

Stannis went to bed quietly, but his mind was a maelstrom and his body was in complete rebellion. _What the hell is going on here_ , he thought. He had never been more inflamed — incandescently, furiously aroused, hardly able to articulate or contain it — and he had never been more confused.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm afraid this sexual frustration death march* is nowhere near over ... so thank you for sticking with it! They are just so stubborn and confused. Is it giving away too much to say there will be resolution eventually? Many flavors of it.
> 
> Also, the view from the top of Heavenly Ski Resort's Sky Chair actually is this amazing on a clear day. I tried to capture the reaction upon first seeing it through Davos but it's really kind of indescribable.
> 
> *All credit to deisegal for this phrase! ;)


	17. Chapter 17

There was no avoiding it the next morning; Stannis awoke achingly wistful, and he didn’t entirely know why at first until he had called to mind the memory of Davos, Devan, and Shireen all sleeping as he watched them. _My family_ , he had thought suddenly, before scolding himself for the presumptuousness of it. But the idea lingered, bittersweet, all day.

He and Shireen skied alone that day, at the insistence of Davos who said they ought to have some time to do more difficult runs without him and Devan holding them back. Stannis had protested, but Davos was immovable. “You two go,” he said, “just don’t come back on a stretcher. We’ll see you after the lifts close.”

So they had gone, and Stannis once again was amazed at how Shireen had improved over the days, the years. He remembered her at three and four years old, bundled in a snowsuit and wobbly on her tiny skis. Now she was graceful and confident, passing most of the other skiers on every slope. 

At the top of one peak, they got their picture taken by one of the professional photographers who roved the ski area. When they looked at the image in the camera, Shireen insisted they buy a printable version — she was beaming, her braids glowing in the sun. Stannis looked stern as usual: there was no point in even trying to smile for photos, since it always came out looking forced and ridiculous. But the backdrop was beautiful, with Deep Lake glittering blue in the background, and he could hardly deny Shireen a reminder of their trip. He only wished Davos and Devan were in it as well.

“I’ll send it to Mama,” Shireen said on the next chairlift up. Stannis said nothing. He never knew what to say on the occasions that Shireen brought up Selyse. The anger was always there, just under the surface, even after all these years. While he wouldn’t trade his life with Shireen for anything, he never forgot how he had naively counted on Selyse to handle the confusion of a baby. With enough books and articles, he was able to get through the time when Shireen was mainly a dependent, floppy and asleep on his lap all the time, but it had been touch and go for awhile. When he had agreed to Selyse’s sudden wish to have a child he was thinking more of the time when that child was a full-fledged member of the family, with his or her own opinions and interests, and how he could give them the best possible start in whatever those interests were. But then Selyse had left and Stannis had unceremoniously gotten stuck with the whole shooting match. And he had the distinct feeling that Shireen had only wound up a functional, sweet, smart girl by blind luck. He was still afraid he would ruin her.

Not that Selyse would have been a much better parent, he thought ruefully. Her sister Delena kept in touch with Stannis and Shireen much more regularly than did Selyse herself, and when she talked to Stannis she told him, exasperation in her voice, how Selyse was usually just scraping by. She couldn’t hold a job, she couldn’t stay out of the bars. And she couldn’t settle down with one person either. Since she and Stannis had divorced, Selyse had gone through more boyfriends, friends-with-benefits and just plain one-night stands than Stannis could ever count. And that, too, made him angry. Why had he trusted her? And why had he not been enough for her? He didn’t want her back — but why hadn’t she wanted to stay?

He tried not to let these thoughts sour his mood as he and Shireen trekked up and down the mountain. The blue sky and perfect conditions helped, but it wasn’t until he and Shireen skied down to the base on their last run, and he saw Davos and Devan waiting for them, that he felt truly free of the melancholy that had hovered over him since Shireen had mentioned Selyse. 

They were in their street clothes, sitting on a restaurant’s patio, and Devan was devouring a plate of nachos. They both looked rested.

“Did you guys even ski?” Shireen asked, when they were all up on the deck and Stannis was gratefully drinking the mug of cold beer Davos had pushed over to him.

“We skied in the morning,” Davos said. “Then we just walked around the resort this afternoon. There are a few hiking trails that are open. And Devan wanted to buy a souvenir for Marya so we went into some of the stores.”

“I got her a magnet,” said Devan, with his mouth full. “And a snow globe with skiers in it.”

“She’ll like that,” Davos said. “It’s been a long time since she’s seen the snow.” Stannis couldn’t help noticing how Davos talked about Marya without a trace of bitterness or chagrin, and he wondered how he did it — was it just Davos’ utter inability to be negative about anything? Stannis half-envied him his unfailing amiability even as he guiltily basked in the light of it. 

 

That night, after dinner and a late-ending board game, Shireen and Devan had gone to sleep — in their beds this time, not on the sofa — and Stannis lingered by the fireplace. It was their last night at Winterfell and he was reluctant to retire, to leave the warm room or to part just yet from Davos and leave so many things unsaid.

So he drank the wine Davos had heated and spiced on the stove, and they talked, easily, about their pasts. The marriages, the divorces and the lingering resentment or relief, the children, the way their lives had changed over the years. It didn’t surprise Stannis that Davos had found companionship after he and Marya had split, although none of it sounded serious — and he found himself bitterly jealous of those who had come before. 

But not of Marya, oddly enough. Instead he just felt a burning curiosity about her. What had compelled Davos to marry her, to give her sons? What had kept him with her all those years? As Stannis sank into the sofa cushions and into himself, he found himself coming back again and again to the question of Marya and Davos, and what Davos had loved about her. The later he stayed up, the more base his imaginings became until he finally decided to just ask.

 

“So what was ...” he broke off, gathered his courage and tried again. “What was Marya ... like?”

Davos looked a little perplexed at Stannis’ discomfiture. “Oh, she was great. She was always pretty much of a hippie, she—”

“No,” Stannis interrupted. “I mean to say ... that is ... when you were intimate. What was she _like_?” He hardly knew why he was asking.

“What was Marya like in bed?” Davos, to Stannis’ eternal relief, didn’t look offended or horrified, his eyebrows raised in amusement. Stannis nodded once and Davos went on. “Well. She was quite ...” He trailed off, looking at a spot somewhere over Stannis’ head, grasping for a word or a memory. “Marya had a very strong personality. She got things done.”

“Five times,” Stannis muttered. As soon as he had said it he hoped Davos hadn’t heard. 

“She got things done as often as she wanted them done,” Davos said, grinning. “And she got it the _way_ she wanted it. A dominant type, you might say, without the whips and ropes and all.”

A sudden image of Davos subjected to such accoutrements flashed through Stannis’ head, but he tamped it back down and forcibly steered himself back into the conversation.

“But it was fun,” Davos was saying, “it was good, it worked for us, until it didn’t. Until we realized we were sort of going through — uh — going through the motions. As it were.”

“I’m sorry,” Stannis said unnecessarily, uneasily. 

“Oh no, don’t be. Things were good then, and they ended about as well as they could have. ... So,” he leaned forward to refill his wine glass, topping Stannis’ glass off as well. “What about your ex?”

“Selyse?” Stannis hadn’t thought of what he would say if he’d been expected to reciprocate with information. What _was_ Selyse like in bed? It was hard to remember and the easiest thing in the world, all at once. After all, she was the last person he had made love to, and, he supposed, you don’t forget that so easily. 

“In a way, the same as Marya,” he mused. “She told me when, where, how ...”

“Mm,” Davos said. A neutral sound, a noncommital nod. “And you went with it?” 

Stannis looked at him sharply.

“Yes. Didn’t you?”

“Well, yes, but ...” Davos looked suddenly flushed. “Did you ... did that ... Did it work for you? For her to be that way?”

“No,” Stannis said, more immediately than he had thought to. “Not at all. It felt very foreign, but I didn’t really think there was much use in trying to operate otherwise.”

“But after her, then, did you take that, that role ... or ...?” Davos was staring into his glass, deliberately not looking at Stannis, it seemed.

“How?”

“With other women, after Selyse,” Davos persisted. “Did you take the lead with them? Or did you always just let—”

“There were no other women,” Stannis said. He was surprised at the look of shock on Davos’ face.

“It’s been _how_ long?”

“Nine years,” answered Stannis. “I never dated since her. Not really before her, either.”

“Wow,” Davos breathed. “Nine years. Wow.”

Neither spoke for several minutes. Then: “Didn’t you get lonely? I mean don’t you?” 

 Stannis had to think. “I hardly know. I’m with Shireen all the time, and if I’m not, I’m working. So I don’t really have time to—”

“But ... that’s not the same!” Davos’ tone sounded somehow overheated. Stannis sipped his wine, feeling the allspice and cloves burning the back of his throat. “You don’t have any private life, nothing besides work and being a dad ...?”

“It’s not as though I had a choice!” It came out more harshly than Stannis intended. He took a deep breath, got control of his voice. “I would do anything for Shireen, and I'm all she's got. And she’s so ... well, you know how she is. She doesn’t open up to many adults. Many people at all.”

“You’ve been saying that since we met,” Davos pointed out, “but she’s always been so outgoing.”

“She likes you,” agreed Stannis. “I’m glad she does.”

“Devan too. They got along right away.”

“Yes.” Stannis fell silent. It was true — the way Shireen had warmed to the Seaworths was not like anything he’d ever seen before. She had her girlfriends at school, but they were a tight-knit little group and Shireen was the most bashful of them, especially around adults and boys. Yet she had liked Davos so much she had drawn him a picture and wanted to go see him again after the first time they met, and she had accepted Devan almost as easily — that alarming creature, a boy near her age. Maybe it was because he liked soccer. Honestly, Stannis wasn’t sure what to make of it.

Davos turned toward him. “So you’re happy, pretty much? With things as they are?”

Stannis’ mind was blurring over with the wine and the onset of exhaustion. “Things?” he said, blankly.

 “With your life,” Davos went on. “Do you feel like you’re doing anything for yourself?” 

“Well, I’m doing this.” It came out before Stannis knew what he was saying. “That is to say, I’m up here. Shireen and I have come up for the day but it’s not the same thing. This is the first real vacation I’ve taken since ... I’m not sure when, exactly. Maybe since just after college.”

“Just after—” Davos shook his head, admiringly. “Then I’m glad you decided to come.” He looked at Stannis and Stannis could see that the wine had taken effect, maybe all at once or maybe he had just begun noticing. Davos’ eyes were brighter than usual, his expression more open, his limbs gone loose. Stannis felt the same; like he could have easily stretched out and gone to sleep, right there. But somehow this was more important. Davos stood up to poke at the flagging fire and Stannis leaned back into the sofa cushions.

He tried to take stock. Davos’ voice was laying a gentle siege to his senses, and wreaking general havoc with what he thought he knew was his reality. He could only stare when Davos leaned forward with his chin on his hand, saying maybe Stannis was lonely and maybe he had ignored his own inner life too much, should focus on what he wanted, and Stannis had to bite his tongue to keep from telling Davos he was right and why didn’t they start now. The problem was the curve of his shoulders and the way he had almost greedily looked at Stannis on that ski lift and the way the wine was warming his chest and fingertips and blurring his thoughts, running them together like watercolors, painting the fire and the icicles. The problem, Stannis thought, was not that he was lonely. The problem was something else entirely. “I’m not lonely,” he said to Davos, barely holding back “because of you.” Had he said it or only imagined he said it?

Davos looked at him again, brown eyes liquid in the firelight — _had_ he said it? — and Stannis could almost feel him breathing, could almost feel himself stepping toward the precipice. One more second and he would be there, saying it, meaning it, lost and glassed over with it. And what if Davos had the same confusion? What if Stannis told him he was always content now, always, when they were together, and Davos didn’t agree, or didn’t know if he agreed? What if Davos agreed but didn’t think he should? All the what-ifs swirled around him like dreams down a drain, leaving him empty and scoured in the few seconds it took for this poison stream to slip into his thoughts. And he stood up suddenly, if not steadily. “We have a long day tomorrow, and we should sleep.” He didn’t, or couldn’t, spare another look toward Davos — what disappointment or alarm might he see in his eyes? — and he stalked away, leaving Davos and the fire to burn to embers and become dark.


	18. Chapter 18

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Deus ex outspoken son strikes again. Thank you Allard, you always distill a situation so perfectly ...

There was a lot of time to think, it turned out, in a warm house with three people sleeping in it. The silencing snow outside was nothing like the waves that beat outside Davos’ window every night of the year while he drifted off to sleep. Vaguely he remembered the last woman who had slept over — her hair dark and gel-spiked, her age indeterminate, her name never discussed — saying that the ocean outside his house was better than a relaxation tape. He had become confused at that: of course it was, wasn't that the point of the tapes? To sound like the real thing? She had laughed. And he remembered, too, Allard — the impertinent one, always — asking if he was going to see her again. “I doubt it,” he’d told Allard, “she’s on her way to Mexico by now.” And then years later, earlier today, the same son brazenly asking if he was _dating_ his best friend, Stannis, if he was in love with his best friend, if he was — 

“Stop,” Davos said to him, “stop asking questions because I’m not discussing this with you anymore.”

“Dad. I am twenty-one years old. And if you’re actually sleeping with this guy I’m not going to be shocked. I’m not Dale, I’m not _Matthos_...”

“Or Maric or Devan, of course not,” Davos’ voice was cut with an unusual sharpness. “They wouldn’t ask me this kind of thing.”

“Maric — you might be surprised,” Allard mused, entirely missing the warning in Davos’ tone. “Devan's too young, although of course I wasn’t at his age ... Listen, Dad. If you don’t think Mom ever messed around with women ...”

“What!”

“Down here?” Allard's laugh huffed noisily across the line. “Are you kidding? All these hippies. Free love. It's like the ’60s.” 

“You weren’t there in the ’60s,” Davos said darkly. 

“It's like what everyone thinks the ’60s were, then. Same difference. Mom is great, she’s always been great, you know that. But the lady can party — you know that too. She brought home this one gal, Arianne — Jesus God,” Allard trailed off dreamily for a moment while Davos looked at the phone in a numb sort of shock. “She was a stone fox. I’m not gonna say I didn’t try anything.”

The humor of the situation began to emerge despite Davos’ distaste for this whole conversation. After all, if Allard was talking about Marya’s once-girlfriend then at least he wasn’t talking about Davos and Stannis. “What did your mom think about that?”

“Ignored it. So did Arianne, I’m sorry to say.”

“So what happened to her?”

“Oh, no idea,” said Allard, all airy unconcern. “She was here a few days, then went somewhere else. I went through Mom’s stuff to find a phone number ...”

“You have no respect for the privacy of your parents,” pointedly.

“And I never found her number. My God though! ... All this black hair, dark skin ... Anyway, that’s hardly the point here. Have you _never_ been interested in a guy before this?”

“I don’t know, have you? Don't answer that.”

Allard laughed again. “I won’t. I notice you didn’t correct me when I said ‘before this.’”

“I’m tired,” Davos had said then. “This discussion is exhausting me.”

“All right, Dad. Just — listen. It sounds, from here, like there’s something going on.”

“Why on _earth_ —”

“It’s not because of anything you’re doing. It’s the way you talk about him.” Davos had wanted to ask how, exactly, he sounded when he talked about Stannis, but in the same moment he did not at all want to know.

“I want you to be happy. We all want you to be happy. When I talk to you or Dale talks to you, Mom asks how you sound. Not what you’re doing, or how your job is or whatever, but how you sound. If you sound good, like things are good.”

“She wants to make sure she didn’t ruin my life by leaving, which she should know already —”

“That’s not it, Dad!” Finally Allard sounded frustrated, and Davos had to suppress a bitter sense of victory. “Jesus, you’re stubborn. She wants you to _actually_ be happy. You know what I’ve told her the last few months?”

Afraid to hear the answer: “What.”

“Since you _met_ this guy —”

“Stannis.” Firmly. 

“Since you met Stannis. Around the fall. I’ve been _able_ , for the first time in years, to tell her that you fucking sound great. You sound like you’re in love. You sound like Dale when he's talking about Janna. ... I don't tell Mom that. I just tell her you sound happy. And then she’s happy. And I want to keep being able to tell her that.”

“All right.” His exhaustion was almost painful, like a weight on his chest. “All right. Okay?”

“Okay. We love you, Dad,” and the words sounded more like a reassurance than they ever had before, “is all I’m saying.”

“Love you too, Al. Talk to you soon.”

When they hung up, Davos had put his head in his hands, wondering why the universe had blessed and cursed him with sons. Especially that one, he thought, the one who, from the moment he could talk, always told him things he didn’t want to hear. But what Allard had said then had hit him like the proverbial ton of bricks. Not only did he sound happy, as important as that seemed to be to his distant family — he had also sounded _more_ , like “something was going on.”

What was it Allard had asked? Had he been interested in a guy before? Rubbing his eyes with the heels of his hands, Davos tried to think. It wasn’t so much that he couldn't picture a man he had been attracted to. There was beauty everywhere, in hard lines and soft ones, and Davos couldn't ever help noticing that, occasionally to his detriment. There was a thread of amazement that ran through each person and connected them to him and to each other. There were men and women who were fascinating, sex-drenched, or sometimes agape with the awe of nature. And he loved seeing that. 

But he couldn’t think of specifics, or of faces. He couldn’t think of anyone in a very long time whom he had wanted to admire from up close instead of from afar. 

Al’s words echoed in his head, “You sound like you’re in love.” What had it taken to make his sarcastic, cynical son, who played the field like a football star, say something like that?

When he thought of who he was drawn to — the laws of gravity all becoming decentered, the atoms of the world rearranging themselves into strange and familiar patterns around him and within him — there was only one answer, sweeping everything and anything else out of his mind. The lips were chapped and curved, the skin was pale and severe, the eyes were a startling blue, a breathtaking blue, a blue of sea-sky and secret places in the summertime. The voice was rough, sometimes soft, sometimes sharply restrained, teeming with the promise of what it was holding back. It could have described many people, put like that: the color of an iris, the shape of a mouth. But taken together with all the aspects that could not be defined or named, these fleeting details coalesced into a portrait, an actuality, a whispered confession in the failing firelight: _Stannis._


	19. Chapter 19

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It’s time for this little story to go forth and earn its “Mature” rating in the world. I’m not going to warn for sexual content at the beginning of each chapter where it occurs, but suffice it to say from here out it will probably be pretty hot and bothersome. In a good way. Bothersome in a good way. I hope.

Stannis looked at the clock. 11:45 at night, but outside, the moon had lit up the sky like it was broad daylight. He reached up and tugged the curtains more tightly closed, but the light seeped in and he flopped back on his pillows, frustrated. Shireen had been asleep for more than three hours, worn out by sunshine and fresh air, and the house was silent and the Summerhall street was silent and damn it, everything was quiet and asleep except Stannis, whose mind raced, as it had since they had returned from Winterfell two days before.

Maybe Davos had been right — maybe he was lonely. Almost ten years was a very long time to go without anyone sharing your bed or your life, filling the minutes and the weeks in the way that Selyse had, however briefly. It wasn’t, as Davos had guessed, that he’d set out intending to sacrifice his thirties for Shireen. It was just … he had hardly had the opportunity for companionship, and the few times the opportunity presented itself, he hadn’t had the interest. 

Stannis thought back on the women he might have dated over the years and could hardly remember their faces, let alone their names, until just this month when Melisandre had appeared in his life like a red comet, glowing with her own determination. Nobody else, whether interested in Stannis or not, had made much of an impression. After Selyse, he had changed all his expectations, perhaps unwittingly, but irrevocably. He did not want to fall into something else that was merely tolerable, or else what was the point? So he had waited to be happy, actually happy in the way he saw some couples together — and maybe that was all a front, or maybe Stannis did not have it in him to be that happy.

 _But you do_ , a part of him knew. Even Shireen had noticed. “You’re not so grumpy anymore,” she’d told him teasingly, cheeringly, as if encouraging him. He had tried to glower at her over the newspaper but she’d just smiled down into her notebook. “Everyone needs a best friend,” she’d said. Stannis had rolled his eyes in protest but she hadn’t noticed. 

And that was most likely it, anyway. He smiled faintly in the dark, thinking of Davos up at Winterfell, caught in the crosswind of a sudden snow flurry on a high ski slope — and later in the chalet, warming his hands in front of the fire while Stannis sat staring into it. The wine had gone to Stannis’ head in the altitude and he knew he had probably said too much about Selyse, asked too many questions about Marya, but there was something sober inside him that wanted to know, even if he could blame it on the drink. He had to know just how much and how long Davos had loved Marya — _five_ sons — and whether the women he'd dated in the intervening years had made him feel any kind of serenity or peace or if they were just there to fill the empty spaces. He hadn’t meant to ask all of that, really, and when Davos had turned to him to answer, Stannis had stopped concentrating on the words and had focused his hazy attention just on watching Davos: his hair, and his wind-chapped lips — talking about _other people_ , people who weren’t Stannis, this hardly seemed fair — and his brown eyes, darkened but shining in the firelight and so kind and expansive and Stannis couldn't remember anyone ever looking at him quite like that.

His eyes drifted closed as fatigue and memory conspired to take his mind places he hadn’t let it go before. What if he had followed his almost-overwhelming instinct to lift his hand to Davos’ face, cradling it in his palm, would Davos have kept speaking to him of his past or would it have propelled them into some unknowable future? Would he have thought of his ex-girlfriends then, would he have said more about what it was like with Marya? 

And maybe Davos would have told him, while Stannis caressed his cheek and hair and behind his ear, that before he made love to Marya he always warmed her up with his mouth first, kissed his way down her body, between her breasts, trailing his open lips down her stomach … would he say that if he knew Stannis was looking at him wanting, more than anything he could imagine, to feel that? Stannis let a harsh breath escape from between his teeth as he wrapped his hand around himself and arched up into the feeling of it with a need he didn't know he had. If it was Davos’ hand there — no, Marya’s, he made himself think, trying to conjure up an image of her in his head. Both together, then, he decided — Marya between them as Stannis fucked her, faceless, from behind ... and Davos on his knees with Marya’s — Stannis’ — hands tangled in his hair, pulling his head in tighter, Stannis almost there and Davos close himself, little sounds coming unsteady from his throat. At the end Marya faded out, dissolute, and it was just Davos there now. And Stannis pulled him up and used both their hands together, and bit his own lip hard to suppress his strangled groan. He squeezed his eyes tightly closed, wanting more of that vision, as he finally spent himself in his hand — almost feeling the other hand that he imagined there, rough and firm and so, so warm.

Enough was enough. He really must be lonelier than he thought — to use Davos’ ex-wife in that way! — and he would call Melisandre in the morning. She had made her intentions clear enough. With this conclusion settling uncomfortably in his mind, but with his body wrung out and sedated, he finally rolled over and slept.

—

She picked up the phone after maybe half a ring. “Stannis,” she said, in that voice like a whisper of dark silk. He remembered the last time he had asked someone out on a date — it was Selyse, and she didn’t have caller ID or a cell phone so he’d had to actually say hello and who he was. He couldn’t decide whether this was better or worse.

“Yes, hello,” he said. “I assume you got my message? ... From before the holidays?” 

“I did,” Melisandre said. “Has your schedule cleared up somewhat?” 

“... Somewhat.”

“Then I would still like very much to see you.” Her tone was warm now, almost too much so, and Stannis felt somewhat overheated. That was probably a good sign, he thought. Anything to put some distance between himself and last night, where he had stroked himself off to a fantasy of Davos and had climaxed with more intensity than anything he could remember when he had brought that shadow-Davos close to him, up to his face and entwining their hands around him —

“Stannis?”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t quite catch what you—”

“I just asked if you would like to meet at the restaurant I suggested last month, in Amberly. Maybe tomorrow evening?”

“Yes, of course,” answered Stannis, hardly aware of what he was saying. His face was flushed and he was already aroused again just remembering. _Melisandre_ , he reminded himself. Then they were saying their goodbyes and their see-you-tomorrows, and, somewhat guiltily, Stannis hung up the phone.

That night there was no use trying to rest. He was too keyed up for tomorrow, or at least that’s what he told himself before he gave up and and took himself in hand again, thinking that at least he ought to be able to sleep. His sigh of resignation quickly turned to one of grateful relief and then outright lust as his eyes slipped closed and Davos was there again behind them, this time tracing his tongue down Stannis’ belly, the ends of his hair making tingly taut places on Stannis’ thighs, never advancing lower but hovering teasingly over him ... “Davos, stop,” he begged into his pillow, unable to either keep the image at bay or to bring it in closer, and unwilling to determine whether he meant stop altogether or just stop teasing him. It hardly mattered because then he was coming again, making the mattress shake with the force of it, biting at the abused pillow and wishing for Davos’ shoulder there instead. It would be salty and hard under his teeth, he thought, a smile slipping through his grimace as he came down, rolling off the wet spot on his sheet and cursing his own weakness. 

“For God’s sakes,” he muttered, getting up and going into his bathroom to wash himself off. He caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror: tousled hair, the color high in his cheeks, a dazed look in his eyes. _This has to end_ , he told himself, and after tomorrow it would. He would not risk his friendship with Davos by letting on that any of this ever went through his head. Raw from the scouring of the washcloth, he went back to bed, and when he drifted off it was Davos’ arms he felt around him but he was too sleepy and too content to try to push the feeling away.

—

Melisandre was waiting at the bar when Stannis arrived the next evening, with a glass of red wine in her hand, and with her auburn hair piled half atop her head and half flowing in curls down her back. It was hard to say whether the most noticeable thing about her was the hair, the head-to-toe red clothing, or her violently colored lipstick, so bright it looked like a smear of blood had stained her mouth. When she stood to greet Stannis, taking his hand in her two warm ones, Stannis noticed again just how tall she was — almost as tall as he was, possibly the tallest woman he’d ever met aside from Shireen’s soccer coach Brienne. And Melisandre dressed to flatter her voluptuousness. Tonight her neckline plunged halfway down her chest, revealing deep cleavage; but it didn’t look cheap, it just looked elegant. _You could do worse_ , Stannis told himself. She had still not let go of his hand. 

Even at the table, when they were seated and had ordered dinner, Melisandre seemed reluctant to break physical contact with Stannis. He felt her leg brush his under the table and, the first time, flinched back from it before realizing it was not clumsiness on her part. He had not been touched by a woman in many years, let alone fawned over, he thought, even as he winced at how the turn of phrase sounded somehow cruel. He tried to keep up his end of the conversation as they ate.

“Where is Shireen tonight?” Melisandre was asking, “is she with her friend Jeyne?”

“Yes,” he said, smiling for real for the first time since he had arrived. “She’s at their house for dinner.”

“They’re lucky to have such a close friendship,” Mel said. “It’s so wonderful when people can find that sort of a communion.”

Stannis’ eyebrow quirked before he knew it. “Communion,” he said, half smirking. “That’s a big concept for two nine-year-olds.”

“Yes,” Mel answered, her smile widening, “but it will become more important. It’s so hard to go through life alone — don’t you agree, Stannis?”

Stannis blinked. “I’m hardly alone, I have—” _Davos_ , he almost said, before catching the name between his teeth in surprise. “Shireen,” he finished instead, even knowing that was not what Mel meant.

“That’s different,” she said, as if on cue. “Shireen is your family. Your only family, perhaps?” 

“More or less,” he answered. Mel waited for him to go on. “My younger brother lives in Highgarden, and I don’t see him often. Our parents are dead. Killed in an accident when I was eighteen.”

She laid a hand on his arm, true sorrow in her eyes. “I’m so sorry.” 

“Yes — well. It was harder for my brother, he was so young ...”

“You were young, too.”

“Be that as it may be,” Stannis said, “it was harder for him. I wish Shireen had been able to know them, though.”

Abruptly, Melisandre asked, “Where is Shireen’s mother?”

 “I believe now she’s in Casterly Rock,” he said, “at least that’s what I gathered from the return address on her last Christmas card to Shireen.”

“They are in touch?”

“Not even remotely — except Selyse sends the annual card, sometimes five or ten dollars. She only ever signs the card, she never writes a message in it. When Shireen was younger, she used to write her own messages in. Pretending her mother had written to her.”

Melisandre took hold of his hand where it lay on the table. “All you’ve ever had is people abandoning you,” she murmured. “You have had no one besides Shireen remain consistently in your life.”

Stannis wanted to say that was not true, he had Davos, but for the second time he held it back. Instead he said nothing, looking at Mel’s hand on his. Her fingernails were red — of course — and as he watched she tightened her warm grasp.

“Look at me,” she commanded. He did. Her eyes were bright red fire in the light of the candle that burned in its glass on their table. 

“I would stay by your side,” she said, looking straight into his face, “If you wanted me there.”

“You hardly know me,” he said. “How can you know something like that?”

“I have seen it.” Her gaze slid to the little candle. “Sometimes we are given a gift we don’t expect. The sight, you might call it, is mine. In the flames, I can sometimes—”

“You can read the future in the fire?” Stannis tried to keep the skepticism out of his voice, but it was nearly impossible.

“Not the future,” she said, “just the present, another layer that we don’t see normally. Unless we know how to look. ... Do you believe in things you can’t understand?”

“What kinds of things? Gods?”

“To begin with,” Mel said, smiling. “Gods are one place to start.”

“In that case, no,” said Stannis. “Any God or gods who would take my parents and leave Renly alone that young ...”

“You _and_ Renly,” Melisandre corrected him. “You are very fond of your little brother.”

“I wouldn’t say—”

“Protective, then. But he left you too.”

Stannis said nothing. He didn’t know what he could say. 

“Let’s leave,” Mel said suddenly. She summoned the waiter and he appeared almost immediately; she let Stannis pay, and he had the feeling she was just indulging him.

Outside, the cold air was bracing after the suffocating warmth inside the restaurant that had nothing to do, he suspected, with the heating system. He walked Melisandre to her car. 

“Would you like to come home with me?” she asked. Stannis got the idea that sounding overly forward was the last thing she would care about. “As you said, I hardly know you,” she went on. “I would certainly like to, much better than I do now.”

“I have to go back and collect Shireen,” Stannis said; he felt panicked, despite the fact that he’d almost found himself hoping he would get just this invitation. “They were only having her over for dinner, they—”

“I understand,” Mel said. “Maybe you can arrange for a longer visit sometime soon.”

“Yes,” he said. His mouth was very dry, his breath rasping through it roughly. _Do it now_ , he ordered himself. He leaned down and kissed Melisandre on the cheek, was about to move to her lips, but he found he could not. He was frozen where he was, choking in air. Her hand had gone around his waist, and her eyes were fixed on his face, questioning. He swallowed hard. “I’m sorry,” he said, anxiety swirling in his head. “I don’t know — I’m sorry,” and he broke away, nearly sprinting toward his car.

Two blocks from the restaurant in a direction he hadn’t meant to take, he stopped the car and turned off the lights. He put his head in his hands against the steering wheel. “What the hell was that about,” he said out loud. 

Whatever it was, it had done a number on him: his heart still pounded frantically, like a scared rabbit trying to get away from danger, and he still felt lightheaded and short of breath. Maybe he just wasn’t cut out to date anymore. Doomed to bachelorhood from ten years away from the playing field, he thought bitterly, and had to laugh. Doomed to be alone, like she had said, everyone abandoning him at one point or another.

Well, almost everyone.

First he texted Masha, the cell phone screen’s brightness making him blink in the darkness of the car. He said he was nearly ready to leave and would be there to get Shireen in another half hour. Then he called Davos. When he picked up, Stannis felt himself relax, his breath coming normally for the first time in what seemed like hours.

“I went out with Melisandre,” he said.

“Oh?”

“Yes. It was strange.”

Davos was silent, waiting.

“She said she can see things in the fire. The future. Or no — not the future. Another layer of the present.”

Davos laughed, then quickly stifled it, but it was refreshing because Stannis had wanted to laugh hearing it but something had stopped him. Now he half-smiled to himself, the absurdity of it all coming clearer.

“Well, I mean,” Davos said, “I guess it’s not out of the question. It must have been weird to have her bring that ... that power up. On your first date.”

“It might be the last date,” he said. 

“Mm,” Davos said. Was it some kind of agreement? “You never know, I suppose ...”

“I suppose not.” Stannis felt suddenly shy, uncomfortable talking about Melisandre any more when he remembered how he had thought of Davos just the night before, and the night before that, and his breath caught dangerously in his throat. “I need to go pick up Shireen.”

“Tell her hi for me,” Davos said, but his voice sounded faded and distant, and Stannis wanted to ask why but had no words to do so. They said goodbye and hung up, and Stannis drove on to Masha’s house. At least he was calmer now, even if still embarrassed — but he was more at sea than ever. This date — this possibility of Melisandre — was supposed to solve the problem of his acute attraction, and alarming attachment, to Davos. But instead it was Davos he had been thinking of nearly the whole time, and it was certainly him he was thinking of now — even in the bright bustle of the Heddles’ house and the quiet at home after Shireen had gone to sleep.

Stannis had not known he was so exhausted, but he was out almost immediately after getting into bed. In his last moments of consciousness he still imagined curling back into Davos’ arms — was this going to be a regular thing, the only way he could fall asleep? — and when he woke up the next morning, he wondered for half a second where Davos had gone. After all, he had been there, hadn’t he? But the next moment it was gone, the sunshine streaming in and erasing the dark, sweet memory.


	20. Chapter 20

When Melisandre had called Stannis to ask him to meet her for coffee, he wasn’t sure, but he thought she almost sounded nervous before he shook his head and banished the thought from it. Melisandre and nervous didn’t belong in the same universe, let alone the same sentence. Yet when he saw her, she did seem to be out of sorts. He blamed himself, for acting so strangely with her last time. He had only agreed to meet her now because he had to be honest with her sometime: that he couldn’t start seeing her, he couldn’t start seeing anyone. He was not ready, or never would be.

She was far less tactile than she had been on their dinner date, sitting here in the coffee shop on a Sunday morning in the broad daylight. She still outshone everyone around her, with her ever-present red outfit and her hair spilling down her back. But even though he had thought it was nonsense, some part of him knew she was ill-at-ease.

 “Stannis,” she said, “I need to see if you are ... well ... to ask what your plans might be, going forward.”

Plans? Going forward? She sounded suddenly like one of his managers.

“I don’t quite—”

“With me, I mean,” she said, taking a long drink of her mocha. “Are you interested in any kind of a future together?”

It was all happening too fast. He had just gotten there. “Melisandre,” he said. He took a deep breath and let it out. “I don’t know why I would say this, why I would _think_ it, because it makes no sense. But I don’t think. ... I don’t think I can allow you to expect that.”

“I thought not,” Mel said. But she didn’t look disappointed. Stannis furrowed his brow despite himself. Why wasn’t she disappointed?

She went on. “I’ve met someone,” she said. “He’s a little outside society, so I’m not surprised I had never come across him before. He works in the outdoors—”

 _Christ Jesus, it can’t be Davos_ , he thought in a blind panic. _Can it?_

“—in the Forest Service,” she was saying. “And he’s an environmental activist. His name is Beric. We met at a beach bonfire the other weekend and ... Stannis, you aren’t interested in this. I’m sorry.”

“No, no I am interested,” Stannis assured her, his relief washing over him in great waves. “Please do go on.”

She did. Beric Dondarrion had been staring into the fire, oblivious to the drinking and smoking and dancing around him, when she noticed him. He had lost an eye in a clash with police, and wore a patch. He had been through some violent logging protests. He and Mel had been drawn to each other immediately and were nearly inseparable since. He was, maybe, the one she had seen in the flames.

“I thought that was me,” Stannis said, almost teasing her. But Melisandre blushed all the way to her crimson hair.

“Yes,” she said, after a pause, “so did I. But sometimes I am wrong. The fire doesn’t lie, though humans can be mistaken. But I do feel badly. I had said I would be the one who wouldn’t abandon you, and—”

“Please don’t worry about that,” he said, earnestly. “I am ... less alone than you might think.” He was just about to tell her about Davos, maybe even to ask what she thought of the whole mixed-up situation. 

“Oh, that reminds me!” Mel said, pulling a newspaper out of her purse. “Your brother Renly. You still haven’t heard from him?”

Stannis tensed up. Why was she bringing up Renly now? “No.”

“I read this this morning...” she flipped through the paper, “ah, here it is. ‘Star baseballer Loras Tyrell may be the first high-profile athlete to fail to deny that he is in a same-sex relationship—’ _Fail to deny_ , that’s interesting phrasing, isn’t it?” She looked at Stannis. 

“Well, go on,” he said. He could hear the anger rising in his voice but could not stop it. 

“... with the stage actor Renly Baratheon. Baratheon, thirty, was most recently linked romantically to Loras’ sister, the socialite Margaery Tyrell ...”

Stannis snorted in spite of himself. If Renly was “linked romantically” to Margaery Tyrell, then Stannis was linked romantically to a water buffalo. 

“Well, it just talks about that triangle,” Mel said, folding the paper. “This is quite the juicy story for the Highgarden press, not to mention the sports pages. They’ll be squeezing the flavor out of it for weeks. Have you ever met Loras Tyrell?”

“I certainly have not,” Stannis said tightly.

“Too bad,” Mel mused. “Stannis, you look upset.”

 _Very perceptive_ , he thought, before keeping his ire in check: it wasn’t Melisandre who had written the story, she was just the messenger. “It’s fine,” he lied.

“You aren’t embarrassed, are you!? ... Don’t be embarrassed. It’s the twenty-first century. And every woman and probably half the men in this city and every city between here and Highgarden are going to be jealous. Of _your brother_. Nobody will forget a Baratheon now.”

“Yes,” he said, feeling his cheeks flaming red, “I suppose they will not.” He stood quickly before he said something he would regret. 

“Where are you—”

“I’ll speak with you soon,” he said, putting his coffee mug in the dish tray and leaving, “I just need to go, I didn’t realize it was so late. My regards to Beric, and I’m very happy for you ...” He forced a smile, but was hardly out the door before he was calling Davos, breathless and irritated.

“My brother is in the goddamn paper again,” he said when Davos picked up. “That baseball player situation.”

“Ah,” Davos said, sympathy bleeding through the phone line. Stannis relaxed a fraction. “Do you and Shireen want to come over this afternoon? Would it distract you some? It’s the last Stags game of the season ...”

Stannis suppressed a smile. “I didn’t know you kept up with the football schedule,” he said. 

“Well.”

“Yes, I think that would be perfect, if you’re sure it’s no inconvenience.”

“None at all,” said Davos. “I’ll see you in a few hours then. Kickoff is at—”

“Two. I know,” Stannis said, and this time he could not hold back the amusement in his voice. “We’ll be there.”

—

There was an undeniable electricity in the air that had nothing to do with the chilly fog blanketing the beach outside Davos’ condo. Stannis had hoped the visit would calm him, but later he felt he should have known better. Even with Shireen there he was distracted and strained, and although she added her welcome levity and enthusiasm, Stannis and Davos stayed quiet and preoccupied. The drive to Rainwood had been wet and slippery, and maybe that had added to Stannis’ tension — but no, even as he thought it he knew it was wrong.

Davos knew, he _had_ to know how Stannis had been thinking about him, the recollections still so vivid that he could hardly separate the reality from the fantasy. He could barely focus on the football as his skin prickled where he had imagined Davos touching him and he had to catch his breath again and again, his throat dry with the effort to breathe normally and to stay in the boundaries he had drawn himself.

“Devan emailed you,” Davos said, when the game had ended. Stannis was puzzled but it was Shireen that Davos meant. “He used Matthos’ email and sent something to me for you. He wants you to write him back.”

“I don’t have an address,” Shireen said, but she was pleased, Stannis could tell. “Papa says not until I’m twelve.”

“You can write him back, though,” said Stannis. “You could just use Davos’ account if he doesn’t mind.”

Her face lit up and Davos went to get his laptop, setting it on his desk and opening it up for Shireen. The desk chair was too tall for her and she struggled to get comfortable. 

“You can take the laptop in the bedroom, maybe,” Stannis said, watching her trying to perch awkwardly at the desk. Shireen had napped there before, in the spartan, small room with the bed and the navy blue sheets, when a Stags game had gone on too long for her or when it was too boring. “Tell us when you’re ready to send it.”

“‘Kay,” she agreed, her mind already mostly on what she was going to write. Stannis heard her settle in and then listened for her typing: slow, with lack of practice, and deliberate. And Stannis looked at Davos, comfortable on the sofa. There was nothing he could do that he wanted to, not now, but at least he was finally alone with Davos even marginally. He wondered how to bring up Melisandre, what she had told him about her new boyfriend, the activist, and how relieved Stannis had been because that meant — what? That he didn’t have to try to pretend to be interested in her when in truth his entire attention was fixed firmly and profoundly somewhere else? _I might need another drink_ , he said to himself, _before I can even begin with this._

Stannis reached for his glass, but Davos was there first, about to hand it to him. Their hands touched, just brushed really, but the sharp shock that jolted through Stannis stopped his breath for a moment. He looked at Davos, saw the same surprise and something like a dawning urgency in his eyes, and he slowly, slowly laid his hand atop Davos’, feeling the warm glass between their fingers, setting it down together on the table. He drew Davos‘ hand back and took it between both of his, one finger exploring the rough skin of the fingers, feeling the smooth line of a scar running across the knuckle. He moved to the next finger and found the same texture there, and the same on the next one and the next one. He caressed Davos’ last finger, then the top of his hand, with a touch light and reverent. The television was still on but all he could hear was Davos’ suddenly ragged breathing. He turned Davos’ hand in his own and drew his finger down the middle of the palm, so warm and surprisingly soft, where the skin on the top of his hand had been rough and craggy. His thumb stroked a light path across the inside of Davos’ wrist, and he felt his pulse jumping, just under the skin. Davos was trembling, his eyes glassy and face rigid. Stannis let out a long constrained breath and cursed himself for causing Davos to become ill at ease. He let go of Davos’ hand and cast around for a topic, anything ...

“That story,” he said on a fast exhale, his head spinning, “about Renly in the paper. I guess it’s getting a lot of attention.” He was afraid to look at Davos’ face and see fear or upset there, so he picked up the wine glass, gone colder now, and twisted the stem of it in his hand convulsively. Words tumbled out of his mouth without control or sense but he couldn’t seem to stop them. “Melisandre said she read it — and what she said was that I shouldn’t be embarrassed, but I should be proud, because there wasn’t a woman in town who wouldn’t be envious ... she said Renly had really made a name for the family with that move ...” 

He trailed off, miserably, when he noticed that Davos was almost across the room and in the kitchen, sweeping crumbs off the plates and into the sink, crushing the soda can Shireen had been drinking out of, wadding the paper plates up and shoving them all into the recycling. It seemed very noisy, but at least Stannis didn’t have to keep talking. Davos was not looking at him, would not look at him — but through Stannis’ regret and uneasiness, he had the sensation that his hands, where they had touched Davos, were still tingling.


	21. Chapter 21

That was it, then, Davos told himself for the hundredth time — or was it the two hundredth? It didn’t matter, because _that was it_. 

He had all but told him, hadn’t he? Stannis had all but said to Davos the day before, after the football game, that it was not him, it was Melisandre he was thinking of all the time, and Davos found himself clenching his teeth in unwitting imitation of Stannis when he thought how foolish he had been. How idiotic, he said to himself, how pathetically hopeful, and how very, very wrong. He had thought there was a chance, then more than a chance, then almost an inevitability that they had been on the same wavelength, a silent sinuous truth hovering between them and drawing them ever closer. He had begun to believe it. He had almost seen it, in the reflection of that wine glass, and then he had seen it shatter. 

The expectation of seeing Stannis again was the first thing he had to let go of. After that, he considered, it should be easy to rid himself of the persistent pang of desire, spinning up through him, when he remembered Stannis’ hand on his, feather-light and comforting and foreign. And then once Davos had vanquished that, it would only be left to erase all the hopes he had so carefully amassed over the late fall and the winter, had arranged in precise detail, and whose intricacies he had built up and given wings that sent him off to sleep each night. 

And eventually even the memories would fade. The snow would melt at Winterfell, the wildflowers would overrun the hillside with their riotous colors. Summerhall, too, would bloom, the apple blossoms and manicured rosebushes perfuming the air, but he would not be there to witness it. At the beach, where he paced unseeing now, the sun would bake out their footprints and the tide would come and wash away any evidence that he had ever stood here with Stannis Baratheon. 

The ocean waves welled up at his feet, wide and grey, and the sky was the same color and it seemed to swallow the waves, the sand and Davos’ resigned sigh in its vast emptiness.

—

The next weekend Shireen was sick; she woke up Saturday morning complaining of a headache, then threw up her breakfast and the Children’s Tylenol that Stannis had given her. 

“I still want to go to the beach today,” she said weakly, curled up in a miserable ball on a living room chair, but didn’t put up a protest when Stannis said absolutely not and sent her back to bed. She spent the entire day in bed alternately sleeping and reading, without even the energy to pick up her notepad and draw. 

“Shireen is ill, so we are staying home,” he texted Davos after chiding himself impatiently at his own unease. After all, the beach was where they belonged on a weekend. “She said she wanted to come visit,” he added. “But she shouldn’t be out.”

It was hours later, nearly dinnertime, when he heard his phone buzz again. Frowning at it, he wondered whether Davos had not received his message until now or if he had been unusually busy. Davos’ text merely read: “Hope she feels better soon.” Even for that medium it seemed clipped, but Stannis put it out of his mind and went on about making dinner; just a sandwich for himself and a cup of weak broth for Shireen, with some Saltines on the side. He carried them up to her. 

“I heard from Davos,” he said, and her dulled eyes brightened a fraction. “He says he hopes you’re better soon.”

 “Can I write him, Papa? Can I use your phone to do it?”

“No, we shouldn’t bother him with too many texts,” Stannis said. “And you need to try to eat this and then sleep.”

Sunday Shireen was a little better, but still not well enough to go anywhere. Stannis allowed her to sit up in the den, on the sofa, and watch television while he worked. Much to his relief, she was able to keep down the crackers, soup and ginger ale. Part of him expected Davos to text again asking after her — or even call — but he didn’t, and Stannis had to swallow his disappointment on Sunday night when he had not heard anything. 

When he had put Shireen to bed that night he sat up late, half daydreaming and half remembering, running his thoughts over and over the way he had picked up Davos’ hand and explored it with his own. He suspected or knew that his attentions had been unwanted, but it didn’t stop his shiver in the darkness thinking about the heat of their skin together, the almost visible sparks when they had touched. He remembered vividly the feel of the smooth scars across the four fingers.

On Wednesday Stannis wrote to Davos again and said he might stop by the beach on the way home from a meeting, but then when Davos didn’t respond at all he went home instead. Davos must have been more put out than Stannis had imagined, he thought, with a sullen dread rising in him. He must have thought Stannis was being ... what would Shireen say, _creepy_. The taste of the word threatened to make him ill himself. Stannis had thought, maybe — over all the months, the time together, the look in Davos’ eyes that sometimes seemed to burn right through Stannis, leaving nothing in its wake except bare need — but no. He had been wrong, or else why had Davos withdrawn from him, why had he not reached out? 

That afternoon, before Shireen came home from school, Stannis found himself staring unseeing at his computer screen. He may have truly alienated Davos, lost his friendship and what he had hoped against hope was more than friendship, but that didn’t stop him from wanting to see his face again — even an avatar of his face, just an image would do. He opened a browser window and navigated to Facebook, wondering if Davos had a page — Stannis would never dream of creating one for himself — but his heart gave a rebellious little thump when he saw that Davos did. His profile photo was of himself on the beach, of course, grinning sideways at the photographer, that crooked wide smile that Stannis would probably never see again. Stannis rested his chin in his hand and looked at it for a long time: the waves behind Davos almost seemed to move, his hair almost seemed to blow in the breeze. 

“That’s silly,” he said to himself aloud.

“What is, Papa?” Shireen was just coming in; fully recovered, she swung her heavy backpack from one arm. Stannis closed the browser window all in a hurry.

“What? It’s nothing. Just something I was reading,” he said, more curtly than he had meant. Turning away from the screen and the photo he could almost still see there, he smiled at his daughter to soften his earlier tone. “Are you ready for your snack? I brought Rainier cherries home from work.”

Shireen’s eyes lit up and she set down the bag at the doorway to Stannis’ office, skipping into the kitchen. Reluctantly — did he have time for one more look? — he turned away from his computer and followed her.

—

It had taken everything Davos had not to respond to Stannis’ message that he would like to come by the beach on Wednesday afternoon: _Yes, come back,_ he wanted to write, _come back and don’t ever leave again_. But he knew if he saw Stannis again, if he let himself wade one last time into the ocean-blue eyes, he would be lost and never again found. The best thing was to make an end. But neither was Davos able to tell Stannis never to come back. There was still Shireen to think of. He could only hope that he could put them off long enough to forget, for the suddenly open wounds to heal.

 _Maybe they’ll visit with Melisandre_ , he thought that night, the beer he was drinking black and bitter on his tongue and sitting sour in his stomach. That would hurt, but possibly it would sting less than Stannis coming back on his own, trying to keep a safe and polite distance. Maybe Melisandre would hold Shireen’s hand down the beach, and he and Stannis would be stuck trying to make awkward conversation, watching and not watching them, with Davos remembering how easy it had once been to talk or be silent while the water crept up the shoreline and other voices carried back to them. 

And Stannis would be looking toward Melisandre, with the slow fire in his eyes that Davos had once imagined was for him burning for her instead. And Shireen would be talking adoringly to her, the way she had once confided in him and even in Devan. And Davos would be left cold in the warm spring air, just an interloper after all.

“Fucking _get it together_ ,” he snarled to himself, setting his empty bottle down too hard on his coffee table. But when he stood up to go to bed — far too early — his head spun, and he had to sit down again, with his head in his hands and the bile rising in his throat. Good God, it had only been nine days, and he was already losing it. Maybe just one text ... no, he couldn’t. But he could still do something, just a small thing to comfort himself enough to get to sleep that night.

He stood up again, more carefully this time, and went to the corner of the room where his laptop sat at a desk, unused since Shireen had been there typing to Devan on it. He brushed off the thin layer of dust and turned it on, the loud gong of the restart making him wince. 

 There was no way Stannis had a Facebook account, of course. But it wouldn’t hurt to look — no, he didn’t. Shaking his head at himself but plowing onward, he typed into the Google search bar: “Stannis Baratheon.”

 The first result was a LinkedIn page, with a small black and white photo, and without even a second of hesitation Davos clicked on it greedily. There was Stannis, clearly ill at ease in front of the camera, and the photo looked like it belonged on his company’s public relations site. Even in monochrome Stannis’ eyes bored through the lens and the screen, and he did not smile. It was a look Davos knew — that severe, nonplussed expression that had always seemed to soften into a sort of peace when they were together. Davos had once fancied that he was the reason for that. But now the grave face looked back at him without a hint of affection. Even so, he couldn’t stop looking. He almost reached out and traced the curve of the upper lip — how many times had he stared at it from mere feet away, sometimes just inches? — before jerking back, embarrassed even alone.

 _Go to sleep_ , his brain said to him somewhere far back. Muzzily he listened, tore himself from the photo without ever closing the window or turning off the computer, and somehow made it to the bed. Though he felt as stormy as he had all day, there was something he couldn’t name calming him, a flat greyscale sense of acceptance. He slept dreamlessly, woke silently, went to work with the militaristic sense of one doing his duty.

Around four another message arrived from Stannis. “Is everything all right?” it read, “we haven’t heard from you in awhile.”

“Just busy,” he wrote back with numbed fingers and heart, feeling nearly nothing, and it was almost fine.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [The photo of Stannis.](http://onehotsummer.tumblr.com/post/54265237469)


	22. Chapter 22

Stannis scanned the beach in the growing darkness. He knew by now the path Davos was likely to take — it was the same way Shireen always wanted to walk now. First north into the fog, at least a mile; then at some point only Davos and Shireen seemed to agree on, a turn back south to be borne by the wind, toward the twinkling stars that the clouds hadn’t yet covered. Davos was confident enough to walk closer to the water alone, and maybe also inclined to go farther, so Stannis squared his shoulders and headed north. At least he could expect to meet Davos on his way back. 

The water was wild but the air was calm, and Stannis was sweating by the time he reached the familiar pier where sometimes he, Davos and Shireen would sit and watch the waves before turning back. Although the evening was beautiful, there was a hard rock of anxiety in his stomach that wouldn’t budge, and he turned and glared out at the ocean as if demanding an answer. 

An answer came then, or maybe it was another question, in the familiar form of Davos walking south along the white threads of foam where water met sand. Stannis waited, his throat strangely constricted, until Davos saw him. When he did, an almost palpable shock ran across his face, eyes widening and usual unrestrained smile subdued as he greeted Stannis with a wave of his hand.

“Hi,” Davos said, all out of breath when he reached Stannis, “what are you doing here at this hour?” He looked around at the beach, empty but for the the two of them. “Where’s Shireen?”

“She’s with a sitter,” Stannis told him. “It’s ridiculous, she’s old enough to take care of herself but the statutes say eleven or they’ll call in CPS or God knows what, so I had to call—”

“You got a babysitter to watch Shireen so you could come _here_? By yourself?” 

Stannis determined that he’d ignore the incredulous tone for now. “Yes, I … wanted to speak to you, Davos.”

Davos raised his eyebrows, questioningly, as if to say _Well, here I am_. But something about him was closed off, the way he had sounded lately, like a curtain had dropped somewhere within him and left parts of him dark and empty. Stannis could see the shadows in his face. He turned away from Davos and looked out at the ocean.

“I’ve noticed,” he said carefully, painfully aware of how awkward this all was, “our correspondence has somewhat … cooled.” A glance at Davos; his face was impassive. “Even your texts are only one or two words at most. You don’t … ask us — you don’t ask me to come over, or out for lunch. Shireen misses this, she misses you,” he finished lamely. Then he straightened and looked at Davos full in the face. “We both miss you.”

“I miss Shireen too,” Davos said all in a hurry, his cheeks reddening, “and I’m happy to see her any time you want to bring her here. And if she wants to go out for lunch I’ll take her. And—”

“But not me, Davos, is that what you are saying?”

Davos looked as angry as Stannis had ever seen him, and it jarred him. “Stannis, I like Shireen. You know that. But I’m not going to stand here and tell you I’m happy to babysit while you go fawn over Melisandre whenever you want to and—”

“While I do _what_?”

“For God’s sakes, Stannis, while you chase Melisandre, I said. Pitch woo. Canoodle. Keep company. _Date her_. Whatever you want to call it.”

Surprise and anger played tug-of-war for a moment before a strange satisfaction won out. _That_ was the problem? Stannis suppressed a grim smile. 

“I’m not,” he said, “I am not _dating Melisandre_. Furthermore I have no _interest_ in dating her.”

Astonishment dawned in Davos’ face like the rising sun. And Stannis felt light. If that’s all it was, it was easily cleared up, it was a misunderstanding —

Davos’ voice sheared through his thoughts — the low, desperate, almost pleading timbre of it. “Then why are you talking about her all the time,” he said as if it weren’t a question, just a statement of fact. “The last time I saw you, you were over, that football game …”

Stannis remembered it clearly: their legs pressed close on the sofa, the drone of the postgame show, the lights off, Davos’ eyes suddenly overbright and his breath coming quickly as he turned toward Stannis, seeking — but not finding — not yet. And Stannis had taken Davos’ hand, trying to be gentle, drawn inevitably into the touch, but still feeling as though he may have been doing something wrong. Then Stannis had tensed, become nervous, dropped some throwaway comment on what Melisandre had said upon reading about Renly in the newspaper — and the moment was gone; Davos had turned away, standing up quickly to collect cans and dishes.

“I hardly remember mentioning Melisandre then,” Stannis said. “I didn’t know you had been thinking of it this whole time.”

“I’ve been thinking about all of it,” Davos said, and his voice was still quiet but some of the darkness was gone from it. “I can’t stop thinking about it. But I thought you were trying to — maybe to tell me something by bringing her up right then. Because if you hadn’t, even with Shireen in the next room — if you had stayed right where you were, with your hand there ... “

Stannis barely dared to breathe or move, but goosebumps had sprung up all over his skin and he felt electrified. The sun dropped below the blurry horizon; the blue-silver line of the ocean was tracking toward his feet. Every grain of sand seemed to shine in sharp relief.

“And the way you were looking at me,” Davos went on. He stopped and took a deep breath. In a voice so low it was almost indistinguishable from the rush of the water, he said, “I would have kissed you — do you know that?”

Stannis swallowed, tried to steady himself, his world tilting irrevocably underneath him. After all, someone had to say it sometime, that much was suddenly clear. 

“No,” he said, finding his voice, “no, I did not. And you didn’t, because — of her?” He didn’t want to say her name and break this spell yet again. 

Davos seemed to notice that, and to notice the way that Stannis didn’t recoil, and finally he smiled. “That was the only reason.”

“And have you ever … with—?” The question hung unspoken between them, and Davos gazed out at the oncoming tidal crests.

“No,” Davos said. “I never wanted to until then.”

“... until now,” Stannis finished, and some kind of wonder softened his voice.

He had hardly time to think of how best to begin before Davos turned to him, away from the ocean, with an open, questioning look in his eyes that Stannis couldn’t help but try to answer. He reached out for Davos, drew him in close, and finding that he fit beautifully there, lifted his face to his own. Before Stannis could ask himself just what the hell he thought he was doing, he had done it — his mouth was on Davos’ warm and open lips, and his hand was cradling Davos’ cheek and chin, and Davos was perfect in his arms.


	23. Chapter 23

The evening fog had gathered around them when they broke apart, Davos’ arms around Stannis’ waist and his eyes warm and shining. Stannis felt replete, like a deep breath had been drawn after months of suffocating, close darkness. He let his eyes fall closed and Davos came around to stand behind him, hands never leaving him, sliding up his back over his jacket and coming to rest on his shoulders. Stannis leaned back into Davos’ arms with a contented sigh, but his eyes flew open when Davos dropped a soft kiss on the back of his neck, unbearably gentle. There was a sharp drop in his stomach, like being inside an unsteady elevator or on a boat that lurched in the waves, as Davos kissed a line up the nape of his neck and around toward his ear. The rhythm of the surf seemed to be part of Davos’ voice as he murmured into Stannis' skin, and Stannis was barely able to piece the sounds into words. “I think I’ve actually wanted to do this,” and the fragments began to resolve into something that Stannis could understand, “without knowing it, maybe since I met you, maybe before.”

“Before?” Stannis turned slightly, wanting fewer words and more contact, his skin still damp from Davos’ mouth and chilled from the wind. 

“Maybe,” Davos said, not elaborating, instead sending shivers up and down Stannis’ spine as he ran his tongue back down Stannis’ throat to his collar. Stannis tilted his head back to allow Davos more access and he heard a soft noise of pleasure behind him; the sound made his legs feel weak. Thoughts or scraps of thoughts were floating lazily through his mind — the bewilderment of why they had waited so torturously long to do this, the hazy question of what it meant and what was to come, the turning of some corner. But mostly he wanted more, all of Davos’ intoxicating attention, his lips and his hands ... Stannis turned, inflamed, and fell upon Davos again. Davos trembled under his harsh and hungry mouth and that only made Stannis more forceful, biting down on Davos’ bottom lip and reveling in the sharp whimper that followed, and how he crushed Stannis against his body tighter, leaving no doubt as to his reaction. They separated, breathing hard, before coming together again with a force like crashing waves. What had been gentle was now unyielding, their tongues half-exploring, half-conquering, their bodies hard and close and shivering in the cooling air. 

Stannis had to fight the urge to lay Davos down right there in the sand, at the edge of the water in the night surf. He imagined that Davos would somehow glow in the light of the stars, that his skin would shimmer and dance under his touch, and he wanted so badly to feel this that he gasped sharply with the sudden need for it. But reality made itself known, however unwelcome — it was cold, it was late, he had to get back ... Davos, nearly panting himself, seemed to come to the same realization, unwinding his arms from around Stannis and steadying himself with his hands against Stannis’ upper arms.

The look in his eyes then — intense, glazed over, almost piercing — was too much for Stannis; he had to have more, and now. He reached for him once more, and Davos hummed in pleasure and slid back into his arms. Running his hand down Davos’ arched back to the curve of his hip, Stannis pulled him in closer, exploring, finding a place where Davos’ teeth met the roof of his mouth which, when caressed lightly with the tip of Stannis’ tongue, caused Davos to shudder into him in a way that made Stannis almost forget where he was or who he was or anything but this, _this_ , the sharp and sparking dance of hands and mouths and skin. 

He wanted to cover Davos with kisses and devour him until sunrise — he wanted to open Davos’ shirt and get his mouth on the skin he knew waited for him there — he wanted to do so _many_ things but he tore himself away and roughly held Davos almost at arm’s length. They stared at each other, electricity thick in the air, Davos looking one second away from coming toward him again — and then Stannis took a deep breath of the frigid sea air, closed his eyes for a beat. When he opened them, he looked once more at Davos, and Davos was smiling out at the ocean.

—

It was after nine when he had seen Shireen off to bed, and picked up his phone with hands that were still — still! — unsteady. Davos picked up before the first ring was even done.

“Stannis,” he said, the one word like an exhale.

 “Did I wake you up?” Stannis sank down into his chair, eyes closed, reliving it even then. 

“No. I’m up.”

Stannis was silent.

“Everything all right?”

“I was thinking about you,” Stannis said all at once, without preamble, “all the way home — I don’t remember even getting home — I might have driven to Casterly Rock for all I knew. I put Shireen to bed and then I had to call you to ask you _did that really happen?_ ”

He could hear Davos’ quiet laugh, and the smile in his voice. “I was thinking about it since you left,” Davos said. “Of course it happened. We were there on the beach and the tide was coming in. The question isn’t so much ‘did it happen’ as ‘will it happen again.’” 

“Do you ... would you like it to?” Stannis asked, and then he waited.

When Davos did speak, his voice was constricted somehow, coming tight down the line. “I would like nothing more in the entire world.”

“Good,” Stannis said, “good.” He could hardly catch his own breath and tried to collect himself. “Then it will.”

“It will,” Davos agreed. There was no question — why had there ever been a question? He couldn’t remember when they said goodbye, or who said it first, but he texted Davos just after they hung up the phone: “Good night,” he wrote, and “good night, Stannis,” came the reply, and then he sat with the phone in his hand, looking out at the changing sky, for a long time before he finally got up and went to bed.


	24. Chapter 24

It got to the point where Stannis couldn’t look at his phone, where he would see Davos’ name at the top of the list of received texts, without goosebumps rising on his arms, on his chest, under his clothes — worse, he couldn’t even catch a glimpse of the ocean, or even _think_ about the ocean, without his breath unconsciously speeding up or catching in his throat. Sometimes he’d even see a word in isolation, “he” or “here” or “touched” (as in: “Developers — who touched this file?”) and his vision would blur over remembering Davos’ hands tight on his shoulders, his lips rough and hot on the back of Stannis’ neck, as the night winds blew the ocean spray into their faces. This was no way to live, and yet Stannis felt somehow buoyant, lifted and carried through each hour on the waves of sensation.

The relative peace lasted for a day. Then the next morning Stannis, tension building and pulling inside him, picked up his phone. 

“I want to see you,” he told Davos abruptly. “We have to talk.”

“Mm,” Davos said, and Stannis knew from experience that that could mean anything from “yes, I agree” to “what are you, insane?” “When?”

“Now. Today.”

“Can you meet me for lunch? Frank’s at 1?”

“Yes. I’ll see you—” and he hung up, pacing, without saying goodbye. It was three and a half hours away. He wondered if, and how, he would be able to make it.

—

Davos wasn’t surprised to hear from Stannis, and tried not to second-guess the strain in his voice, his short manner, or what he’d meant by “we have to talk.” He resolutely pushed any negative thoughts from his mind, though if Stannis said he didn’t want to see him again, he knew it would be a long time before he could recover from that — “Stop it,” he told himself. He focused on his work, on greeting the rare weekday visitors with even more enthusiasm than usual, forcing himself not to think about the way the night air had felt, settling over him and Stannis, the smell of the sea mixing with Stannis’ clean scent when he drew close ... 

“So? When should we come back?”

“Oh ... excuse me?” Davos snapped back into reality as a woman, tall, blonde and striking, stood before him impatiently tapping her long fingernails on the glass. A small boy, maybe four years old and a dead ringer for his mother, dragged from her hand.

“You said the tides were too high to see the pools today,” she told him, almost accusingly. Had he said that? 

“Yes,” he said, recovering himself, “lowest tide will be in two days, around eight in the morning.” 

“It’s too early,” the woman said, sounding as if she expected the sea level could be fit to her schedule. “We probably won’t be back then. Come, Tommen,” and she grasped the child’s hand and swept out. Davos looked after her, thinking. Tommen — there was something about that name that sounded familiar, but he couldn’t place it. He looked at the clock and startled to see it was ten till one. Hastily, he turned the hands on the “we will return at” sign to 3 p.m., locked the front door, and almost jogged to his car. He was turning the key in the ignition even before he was fully in the seat, reversing out before the car had really started. The morning had been relatively easy to get through but now that the time was actually here he couldn’t seem to wait, to get there quick enough.

Stannis’ car, as he had expected, was already in the sandwich shop’s parking lot. Davos parked with undue haste, the tires kicking up dust as he braked. He hurried inside, though he was not late, and when he saw Stannis in a booth he merely waved toward the waitress, calling a greeting from the back of the restaurant, and slid into the seat across from him.

“Hello,” Stannis said, quietly, his face serious. Davos’ heart sank as Stannis went on. “Thank you for coming on such ... such short notice.”

At that Davos had to smile. “If you’d said to meet you in half an hour, when you called, I would have tried to get away,” he said.

Stannis’ expression softened minutely. “Oh yes?” he said. 

Davos shifted in the booth until he could feel Stannis’ knee against his own, and nodded, saying nothing but watching Stannis’ face. 

“Why would you have done that?” 

“Because,” Davos said, stretching his leg out so that the length of it rested along Stannis’, “I wanted to see you again and ... I was wondering what you wanted to talk about.”

Stannis’ breath seemed to be coming faster, his focus no longer on their conversation. He looked pale and uncomfortable, fidgeting in his seat. When the waitress came, Davos ordered sandwiches for them both, to no protest from Stannis. “Better get them to go,” Davos told her. 

“Everything all right?” she asked. 

“Yes, time’s just running a bit shorter than we thought.”

“No problem,” and she hurried off. A measure of relief appeared in Stannis’ face. “Can we ...”

“We can go to my place,” Davos said, cursing his sense of duty that would not allow him to call in, plead a lunch-acquired sickness, and keep Stannis with him all afternoon. “I have to be back at three is all.”

“You get a two-hour lunch?” Stannis quirked an eyebrow, a shadow of a smile returning to his lips. “Is this usual?”

“Not really. But on certain occasions ...”

“I see,” said Stannis. “I’ll keep that in mind.” 

At these words Davos’ breath caught in his chest. Blessedly, the waitress appeared and set the two paper bags, along with the bill, on the table. Davos waved away Stannis reaching for his wallet, left too much money because he didn’t want to wait for change, and with Stannis close behind him hurried out.

“I”ll drive,” he said, and Stannis nodded, and Davos didn’t care that it was the first time Stannis had been in his rather messy and comparatively beat-up car; it didn’t matter when Stannis laid his cold hand over Davos’ on the gearshift and Davos felt it tighten there, hard, still wondering what there was to talk about but mostly focusing on somehow making it up the windswept road to his condo.

Once inside, Stannis turned violently and pushed Davos up against the front door. Stannis’ blue eyes were dark and slightly wild, his breath coming fast. He looked about to speak, and Davos was trying to prepare a defense or a word of reassurance or anything really, when Stannis in one swift motion leaned down and kissed him harshly, greedily, forcing Davos’ mouth open with his tongue. He grabbed onto the back of Davos’ head, pulling him in tighter, as though trying to fuse the two of them together at the point of Davos’ stinging lips and Stannis’ insistent ones.

All Davos’ nerves were singing as he let Stannis have his way and tried to keep up and not swoon underneath him like a teenager. Stannis’ body against his was distractingly firm and warm, and Davos, pressed up hard against the door, wrapped his leg around one of Stannis’ to bring him in closer. He felt Stannis’ chest expand with a sharp, deep intake of breath as their hips met and their mutual arousal was made obvious. Stannis pulled back, breathing hard, and Davos tried to keep his need in check, but couldn’t help running his hands along Stannis’ arms and down his back. He wondered when, exactly, he would be able to touch Stannis without the barrier of clothing between them but this was enough for now — more than enough, judging by Stannis’ flushed face and the expression that hovered somewhere between terror and longing.

Davos meant to have them sit at the kitchen table, and eat, and talk, if that’s what Stannis wanted to do. But — “We didn’t bring the sandwiches up,” he managed, looking back at the door.

“Forget it,” Stannis said, his voice gruff and low. He took Davos’ arm roughly and pulled him to sit down on the couch. His face was unreadable, but Davos couldn’t stop looking at his mouth, the lips reddened from kisses. 

“You wanted to talk,” Davos said, distracted, tense with the effort to hold himself back. “So talk.”

“I wanted _you_ to talk,” said Stannis. “And tell me what you possibly make of ... of all this.” He flung out an arm helplessly, the gesture taking in Davos, the house, the sea outside.

“What I think is,” Davos said, stopping, his hand coming to rest on Stannis’ shoulder, to still the nervous limbs. He let himself caress the back of Stannis’ neck, not demanding but trying to soothe, still enjoying the feeling of the short spiky hairs rising to meet his fingertips. He smiled to himself when Stannis closed his eyes and leaned back into his hand. His fingers crept up into Stannis’ hair, making slow trails up and down, feeling him relaxing by increments. 

“Hmm?” Stannis’ head was tilted back, eyes still closed. He looked like a cat luxuriating in the attention, Davos thought suddenly. How long had it been since anyone had touched Stannis like that? He bit his lip, forced his voice to stay calm.

“I thought,” he said, the words and thoughts catching in his mouth and throat, all bound up together with shame at the way he had acted, “I should have known. I was being ridiculous. But it made the most sense at the time ...”

Stannis, mercifully, grasped what he was trying to say and waved it away, impatient. “That’s all in the past,” he said, as if it were not just last week, just yesterday that Davos had stubbornly pushed him away in a fit of pique. It had seemed so final then. “But now,” Stannis went on. “Why would you ever—.” He broke off. His eyes were dark and troubled, and Davos knew there was a desperate doubt lurking just behind all Stannis’ outward self-possession, an overpowering disbelief. 

He thought of how something warm and hungry would lurch in his chest when he saw Stannis coming toward him — how sometimes it felt like he wanted to fly out of his body and write some of the things Stannis had said across the sky, or in the palm of his hand to keep — how just the thought of him was like a whisper on a sigh of contentment. He wondered how to say Stannis made him want to be a better person. But for long moments, no words would come.

“Everything was fine before I met you,” he said finally, feeling Stannis tense at this, “and now everything is much better.” His pulse was racing even as Stannis relaxed again. “I’m not sure I can really describe it much more than that.”

“That ... will suffice,” Stannis said, and his voice was surprisingly coarse, the nearly indistinct hitch in it catching Davos off-guard. Before Davos had a chance to really look at him and gauge his reaction, Stannis had turned to him and crushed him in his arms, closing his teeth almost savagely on Davos’ bottom lip and digging his knuckles into his back. All Stannis’ reserve seemed to have melted — less melted than evaporated, sizzling away like a drop of water on a hot stove. And Davos felt himself falling, into Stannis’ rapid breathing and his insistence and the feeling of his body hard against Davos’ own. 

He gave a wild look at the clock. “Stannis, I have to go,” he gasped, and for a moment Stannis seemed lost, his eyes glassy and fixed, and his shock tore at Davos. “I really — I _really_ want to see you again — soon,” he managed to force out as Stannis leaned back into him and traced a line with tongue and breath from his collar to his ear. Davos’ breath was coming too fast, his head spinning. If Stannis kissed his neck one more time like that, he was not going to be able to curb his reaction or have a hope for any restraint. 

But Stannis pulled away, and Davos saw the effort of this reflected in his eyes, and a swell of satisfaction threatened to overwhelm him even as his body screamed for more. 

“Yes,” Stannis was saying, seeming to try to get ahold of himself, “again, soon ...”

Davos stood, painfully aware of how distracted he was going to be for the rest of the day and wondering whether that night would actually be too soon. He held out a hand to Stannis, watching his face, as Stannis scrubbed a hand through his own hair and sighed. Davos remembered how good it had felt to have his hands in that hair and almost shuddered thinking of other situations where that could happen — his vision tilted for a second and he wondered if he was going to lose his footing. Stannis was putting on his jacket and Davos had no idea when it had come off. They both seemed to realize that they needed to carefully avoid contact with each other until they were safely in the car, almost back to the restaurant. As Davos drove into the parking lot, Stannis laid his hand, warm now, over Davos’ and kept it there until they were pulled up alongside Stannis’ car.

“Do you want your sandwich?” 

Stannis’ face softened into a wry smile. “I suppose I should eat lunch at some point,” he said. 

“You could come back tomorrow ...”

Stannis’ eyes flashed dangerously, the blue glinting. “I might,” he said. The predatory tone in his voice made Davos shiver, wondering what Stannis would do if he were actually secure in the knowledge that together they could be amazing, beyond amazing. Davos swallowed hard and before he could think of anything else to say, Stannis was out of the car and letting himself into his own. Through the window glass, Davos imagined he could still see that look in Stannis’ eyes — it held the promise of falling hard off some edge of safety, and the unknown place of awe that could await them.


	25. Chapter 25

The scenery flying by outside the car suddenly blurred dangerously. “Stop it,” Stannis said to it, to himself, trying to focus on anything but his memories of being with Davos in his condo, devouring him on the sofa and against the front door. Unbidden, the recollection of the sound Davos had made when Stannis first kissed him came rushing into his mind — it was something like a pleased purr in the back of his throat and it had so completely done in Stannis that he couldn’t even think of it without a painful stabbing feeling in his lower belly and ... this, whatever it was causing his mind to float away and his hands to clench on the steering wheel. He bit his bottom lip so hard that he tasted blood, shocked at that for a moment before the uninvited desire for Davos to kiss the swelling lip overtook him. 

When he got home he got out his cell phone and dialed. “I called to tell you,” he said into the voice mail, “that it is physically painful to be without you right now.” His voice caught, broke unevenly. “I’ll see you soon, Davos. I hope.”

—

“Oh God,” said Davos to his phone, when he could breathe again; why had he missed that call? On the other hand, if he had picked up, he wouldn’t have Stannis’ voice, rough and low, recorded forever. He had no idea how many times he’d listened to it already, something tight and hot coiling inside him as he did: “It is physically painful to be without you.” Davos knew it — he heard it in Stannis’ tone — and he felt the same ache and tension and his skin prickling, shivering in the still air. 

When he got home he stood just inside his door for a long time, remembering — thinking of Stannis’ body pressing against his insistently, his kisses wild and desperate. Davos felt his knees go weak in spite of his efforts to stay upright. He peeled off his sandy clothes and walked naked into his bedroom, throwing himself almost savagely across his bed, giving himself up to his need, and hearing Stannis’ voice, quiet and perfect and rasping across his consciousness while he bit Stannis’ name into his pillow: “I’ll see you soon,” and Davos could almost feel the hot breath at his ear, the exploring hands now stilled and holding him tight — “I hope.”

—

Driving south with the windows down, on his way to meet Stannis for a late lunch, Davos thought the brown ground smelled like baking bread. The fog was in the reservoir valley, misting it over in greens and greys, but it never reached the highlands on each side of the freeway. The temperature rose fifteen degrees between his condo and downtown Summerhall.

It was impossible to focus on the weather or the scenery, or the leafy main street of downtown, when scanning the small crowd at the cafe he saw Stannis, his head bent over a newspaper. A tingling sort of shock ran through Davos at the sight of Stannis and he slid into the metal chair opposite him, trying to keep his tone even. 

“Hi,” he said, and Stannis looked up, reached across the table to briefly take Davos’ hand before pulling back nervously. Davos understood: navigating this was new, and he would not begrudge Stannis any confusion or hesitancy. Davos himself had no idea what on earth he was doing.

Lunch passed in a pleasant contentment, with the sounds of spring all around them as the people passed by on the sidewalk outside. When they were done, Davos was going to head back to his car and Stannis back home to wait for Shireen after school, but they stopped at a travel bookstore’s sidewalk sale. Davos could never resist a map or an atlas, and he was flipping through the pages of one from the Stormlands in the 1940s when he heard a voice very close to where he stood: a woman’s voice, low, musical — he turned quickly, and saw the speaker, swallowed up in red, it seemed. With her was a man, red-haired, who wore an eyepatch. Davos, realizing too late that he may have been gaping, fixed his gaze quickly back on the book.

Then she was turning to Stannis, at the next table, taking his offered handshake in both of hers, and he remembered Shireen saying people made fun of the teacher for wearing all red and knew it was Melisandre. His stomach tightened miserably when he watched her, and it only got worse when she introduced him to her companion. Had lunch made him ill? Without meaning to, he closed the atlas he was looking at hard and walked over to them.

“Davos,” Stannis said, “this is Melisandre, Shireen’s art teacher.” Melisandre took Davos’ hand. It was hot — far too hot. 

“A pleasure, Davos,” she said, looking between him and Stannis almost knowingly. “And Stannis, Davos, this is Beric Dondarrion ...” There was a way she said his name, almost chanting the syllables, that made Davos think suddenly of a prayer. The man was gruff, his clothes and his voice somehow dusty and dark even in the bright sunshine. But Melisandre looked at him worshipfully, touching him when they spoke, and Davos remembered how Stannis had said she was ... what word did he use? Demonstrative. 

The fact that Melisandre was quite obviously smitten with Beric didn’t keep the uncomfortable ache from Davos’ chest when Beric and Stannis made some kind of insignificant small talk over the table of books. Davos could see the way Beric looked at Stannis — looked at everyone, really — like his one good eye was burning a hole through anyone he spoke to. Davos felt nondescript and rural compared to the three of them, helpless in the face of their sophistication, and wanted only to get away.

Beric and Melisandre finally took their leave, and when they had gone, Davos relaxed again, wondering just what had come over him. Nerves, maybe, from being out with Stannis in public for the first time since — since they had acknowledged this searing, shattering thing between them. But was that all it was? Just a physical attraction that had been taken to its logical conclusion? He thought again of all the months of longing, starting with the small ways he had found himself thinking of Stannis at odd times — and now, how he could never quite stop thinking of Stannis — now that he had held him and felt the way their bodies and lips fit more perfectly together than anything he had ever imagined, or could ever imagine. 

Stannis was looking at him in a curious way, as he stood bracing himself against the table of books outside, skin prickling strangely in the warm air. “Davos? Are you ready to leave?” Stannis asked him.

Davos nodded vaguely, unable to tear his gaze from Stannis — his hands, his eyes, everything. “Okay,” Stannis said, sounding unconvinced. “I need to go home and wait for Shireen, she’ll be there soon — but where did you park?”

“It’s this way,” Davos said. And when they reached the car it was harder than anything not to push Stannis up against it in the shade of one of Summerhall’s spreading magnolia trees and kiss him goodbye so deeply and long that he forgot everything but Davos. But Stannis got into the car with him and after glancing around, leaned over and gently pressed his lips to Davos’, soft and firm and warm, and it was just as good.

“I’ll come to see you tomorrow at the reserve,” Stannis said, his face distractingly flushed and eyes darkened. “If that’s all right with you of course.”

Davos almost had to laugh — how could Stannis possibly think he wouldn’t want to see him, any place, at any time, especially when he looked like that, like he had either been freshly fucked or was about to be? He arrested this line of thought in a hurry; this, at least, was neither the place nor the time. He settled for pressing his overheated hand into Stannis’. “Yes,” he said, “it’s all right with me." 

—

He hadn’t really been paying attention at first, he had to admit. Stannis had just been playing idly with his hand, as he was wont to do when they were alone, ever since that football game when they had both closed their fingers around the stem of the same wine glass. They were sitting in Davos’ car after lunch, behind the ranger station, listening to the end of “All Things Considered,” one of the string of public radio programs around which Stannis seemed to structure his days. The harmonious voices of the hosts combined with the quiet ocean air coming in from the open windows to relax Davos nearly to the point of dozing off there in the driver’s seat, with barely five minutes until he had to be back inside. Stannis was tracing circles on the back of Davos’ hand, lifting it, holding it to his face — Davos smiled, eyes closed, when he felt Stannis’ rough stubble under his palm, and the wind-chapped lips on his fingertip.

In less than a second, his sigh of contentment turned into a silent shocked gasp as Stannis’ mouth closed around the first joint of his middle finger, the warm and wet feeling of it eclipsing all other sensory input. He wanted to open his eyes but forced himself to keep them closed, to re-calibrate his breathing, to somehow slow the sudden frantic pounding of his pulse. He felt Stannis almost playing with him, licking a tingling stripe up his finger before capturing it in his mouth again. Davos couldn’t help the whispered curse that slipped out when Stannis left that finger cold and damp and waited just a torturous moment before drawing another one into his mouth, sucking gently on it, igniting a heat in Davos’ belly that he could feel spreading out to all his limbs. Stannis touched his tongue to the sensitive bit of skin where the fingers met, and Davos blushed at the thoughts and visions that were flashing though his mind, a mile a minute: Stannis intent, lips parted ... Suddenly Davos had to see him, and with a long shivery breath he opened his eyes and fixed them on Stannis, on the mesmerizing tongue and the lowered eyelids.

The next moment Stannis looked up, catching Davos’ gaze in surprise, taking in Davos’ struggle for breath and the flush on his neck and cheeks. He pressed his lips into Davos’ palm, and the stab of sensation that followed was so powerful that Davos, for several heartbeats, forgot to breathe.

He didn’t know how tightly he was clenching the steering wheel until he felt Stannis reach for that hand, opening it one cramped digit at a time. Stannis’ voice was surprisingly rough, catching on the syllables, when he finally spoke. 

“Are you all right?”

Davos took another deep breath. “Do you,” he said, hearing his voice trembling and trying to steady it, “do you have any idea what you’re doing to me right now?” 

The shadow of a smile ghosted over Stannis’ lips, reflected in his eyes. “I will take that as a rhetorical question,” he said. Davos shifted in the seat, uncomfortably, burningly aroused, and he knew Stannis knew and he didn’t care. And then Stannis’ lips were on his, teeth sinking into his tongue and sucking in hard. Davos groaned into Stannis’ mouth, arching up from the seat to try to get closer. Stannis released him, almost fiercely pulling himself away. “Now _go_ ,” he said in a near-growl. “You’ll be late.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a few little vignettes here … some of them had hold of me since I started writing this piece. And, Beric. Beric is awesome.


	26. Chapter 26

It wasn’t hard to figure out _something_ was disturbing Davos. Whenever they were alone he was calm and assured — not to mention blissfully affectionate, driving Stannis half out of his mind with just his touch or the briefest brush of his lips — but the minute they’d go out and have to deal with other people Davos would close off most uncharacteristically, turning almost sullen sometimes, only for the sun to re-emerge when they were once again alone. 

Stannis’ first thought was that it was simple fear of being judged — or worse, persecuted — as a couple. Whether at Summerhall or at Storm’s End he didn’t think anyone would really look twice; after all, the area was, he thought ruefully, infamous for its multivariate flavors of relationship. And it wasn’t in Stannis’ nature to care what strangers thought anyway. But maybe that was the problem.

He brought it up once, after a rather stormy scene on Davos’ own beach, where Stannis had been talking to a man who walked into the visitors’ center while Davos was busy with someone else. Davos had been perfectly civil — too civil, almost icily polite, and his smile never reached his eyes until everyone had cleared out of the center and he took Stannis’ hand over the glass case with the display of shells in it. Then his long breath out bespoke some kind of release of tension.

“Davos,” Stannis said, keeping an ear out for cars in the parking lot, “let me ask you a question. Are you ... how do I put this? ... concerned about the two of us, about being involved? That someone will react negatively to, ah,” his mouth was suddenly dry and he wet his lips, “to us being together.”

That was far less coherent than he had meant to sound, but Davos understood immediately. 

“No!” he said, taking Stannis’ hand in both of his, holding it tighter. “I could never worry about that. I mean, first of all, there’s nothing to be ashamed of. That’s always been what I’ve believed. And also ... I mean, look at you,” he said, his familiar grin peeking out, “how could I not want everyone to know that you’re mine?”

Stannis’ eyes went wide and Davos tried to backtrack. “I mean, by that, Stannis, of course you’re your own person. That probably sounded overly ...”

But Stannis didn’t let him finish, leaning over the glass, taking Davos’ face in his hands and pulling him into a hard kiss because he couldn’t stand not doing it for one more second. “You’re mine,” he murmured when he let Davos go. “I don’t mind the sound of that.”

Davos was flushed and slightly out of breath, and Stannis remembered he still hadn’t figured out what was going on.

“But then if it’s not that, why do you seem so distressed, when we are out together ... and then you’re all right again when we’re alone? Is my company not what you—”

“ _Stannis_ ,” Davos said, almost impatiently. “Your company is everything I could ever ask for. _You_ are everything I could ever ask for.”

Stannis threw his hands up in frustration. “Then I don’t understand. You’re fine, and then we go out and you go ... almost completely cold. And then you’re fine again.”

Surprisingly, Davos blushed and glanced down at the counter, then looked up desperately to meet Stannis’ eyes again. “You don’t know?”

“I don’t have the slightest idea.”

Davos took a deep breath before going on. “I don’t really even understand it. I was never ... with Marya or anyone ... well, anyway. It’s other people, but not in the way you were thinking. They look at you, and I just get ...”

Realization dawned, but Stannis still didn’t believe it. “You’re _jealous_? Over _me_?” That could hardly be right. 

Davos looked miserable and his voice was very quiet when he next spoke. “I don’t understand it,” he said again.

Stannis knew he should be irritated, but somehow he couldn’t be. Instead he felt a strange sort of gratification, even pride. There was no reason for this, no reason he shouldn’t be resentful ... and yet he wasn’t. 

“Come outside with me,” he said to Davos. There was still nobody in the parking lot save for the ranger truck and Davos’ hatchback, and the clouds were rolling in from the west, faster than the waves. They walked down to the edge of the water, stepping over the rocks and washed-up shells.

“Now listen,” Stannis said, turning to Davos. “It took me a long time to get here, but I’m afraid you’re stuck with me now — me and Shireen. Do you know how long it took me to even register that Melisandre was talking to me the other day, at that book sale? When you’re around, I never even notice anyone else.” 

He took Davos’ hand, led him down the beach a little. Davos’ hair blew in front of his face in the rising breeze, and Stannis brushed it back to look into the brown eyes. 

“It’s real,” he said, “and I don’t always believe it myself. But here we are and I’m not going anywhere.” 

“Say it again,” Davos said, his voice low and trembling. And again Stannis had to suppress the violent urge to wrap himself around Davos like one of the tendrils of seaweed that was twining up the shore; anyone could come, at any time, and it was still daylight and Davos was still on the clock. But it was a near thing.

“One more time,” he said, jaw clenched tight, holding himself back with herculean effort. “Davos. I’m not. Going. Anywhere.”


	27. Chapter 27

Shireen had been nothing but excited since she received the invitation until the minute she climbed out of the car, clutching her sleeping bag and pillow and wearing her backpack with her favorite pajamas and her stuffed otter in it, and kissing Stannis goodbye before running up to Jeyne and Willow’s door. 

Still Stannis felt someway guilty, and he might have felt worried as well — not to mention lonely — except for the fact that he had asked Davos to come over for dinner, and the anxiety of that overwhelmed any other nerves he might have. And although it hadn’t been spoken, he had told Davos that Shireen had been invited to a sleepover and Davos had been very quiet for a moment. Stannis had cursed himself for not at least issuing this invitation in person so he could watch Davos’ expression — but then Davos’ voice had returned, although there was a choked sound to it. “Is everything all right?” Stannis had asked in concern.

“No,” Davos said, sounding terribly serious; Stannis clenched his hand tighter around the phone. “This is Wednesday. I have to wait until Saturday. I would hardly call that all right.”  

Stannis was sure his sigh of relief — mixed with just a bit of exasperation — could be heard down the line.

 

To Davos, Stannis’ house seemed very large — and very empty, with the high ceilings and bare walls making the cold rooms echo. But the kitchen was warm, and after Stannis had let Davos in, they headed there again because Stannis, to his obvious dismay, had not finished making dinner. 

“I may have forgotten to turn the burner on for the rice,” he said, his face tense and miserable. Davos suppressed a smile and took Stannis’ hand, running his thumb along the back of it. He couldn’t be glad, exactly, that Stannis was discomfited, but he was gratified that he was not the only one who had suffered from an attack of nerves. He could barely keep himself within 10 miles of the speed limit all the way to Summerhall, and the thought of having to call Stannis and say he was late because of a police stop kept him compulsively checking the rearview mirror for flashing lights. He felt Stannis’ hand trembling under his own.

“Don’t worry about that,” Davos said, sliding his hand up Stannis’ arm reassuringly. “I brought some wine ...” He reluctantly drew away, noticing that Stannis seemed to have relaxed a fraction. “Is red all right? ... with what you’re making?”

“Quite.”

So Davos looked around and found two wineglasses, poured, and handed one to Stannis, who sipped carefully as he watched two pots simmer. Davos took a seat at the table and watched Stannis — the sleeves on his neatly pressed, pinstriped shirt were rolled up and as the wine began to take effect his movements became more fluid, and Davos couldn’t take his eyes off him, even doing something as mundane as getting out an oven mitt or taking some plates easily down from the highest shelf.

“Can I help with anything?”

“No, thank you — well, if you want to put these on the table ...” Stannis indicated the dishes and flatware. When Davos stood to get them, he brushed up against Stannis, their eyes locked and they drew toward each other at the same time, lips meeting fiercely, tongues entwining like it had been months since they had seen each other last. Their breathing seemed to fill the room, except there was another noise —

“Christ — the sauce —”  They pulled apart, both gasping for breath, and Davos grinned apologetically. “I shouldn’t distract you,” he said.

“I should have ordered a pizza,” grumbled Stannis.

But the meal was glorious, despite the late rice and possibly overly reduced tomato sauce over chicken and olives, and Stannis looked, if not proud, at least complacent as Davos, contentedly stuffed, leaned over to pour him another glass of wine.

“I made dessert,” Stannis said, but Davos cut him off with a look.

“Later,” he said. Stannis’ eyes widened and Davos felt a pang of excitement. He swallowed the rest of his wine fast, stood up and felt it going to his head, and held out his hand to Stannis.

 

The house was very quiet, Stannis noticed, as he followed Davos mutely into the living room. Davos seemed to have taken a strange sort of control, to be navigating on an instinct, his face flushed and voice insistent when he had said “Later.” The undercurrent in that one word, and the look in Davos’ eyes, had made Stannis’ heart jump and the blood rush to his cheeks and neck. He imagined he could almost hear all the things Davos wasn’t saying in that word. 

He was wound so tightly he almost jumped when, once seated on the sofa, Davos put an arm around him. 

“Come here,” Davos said, drawing him in closer, his breath reassuring against Stannis’ cheek, hand making soft circles on his upper back while his other arm encircled his chest. Stannis leaned into Davos and closed his eyes, his breathing finally slowing. “There,” he heard Davos say into his skin; he was reminded, again, of the first time he had ever seen Davos and how he had comforted Shireen with the same words. Now his voice and his hands were melting Stannis, dismantling his defenses, taking down the walls around him brick by brick and enveloping him in a silent and safe place. His body felt like a river, flowing into Davos and around him. 

“Do you want me to stay?” he heard, as if from far away, though Davos’ lips were very close, almost humming into his ear. 

“Yes,” Stannis said, never opening his eyes: the fuzzy greys behind his eyelids were blurred in with Davos’ voice and his enfolding arms. “Of course I want you to stay ...”

“Then come with me.” Davos’ voice, quiet, tugged at something within Stannis through all the tension and nerves. Stannis felt Davos shift behind him and stand. Davos was watching him with an look that was almost ... luxuriant, Stannis thought with a sudden start. Of all the expressions he may have expected to see in Davos’ eyes, the feeling that he was being consumed, enjoyed, _already_ , was not one. He felt something tight and hot in his chest, pulling him, impelling him, toward Davos and down the hallway.  

Davos led him into the bedroom — as if it were his own house, and Stannis found he didn’t mind — Stannis seemed to be swimming through a fog, or a thick syrup in which the only sounds were Davos’ voice and his own pounding heartbeat. Davos laid him down on the bed, gentle as a rainfall, and Stannis found himself breathing hard and heavily with a rising feeling of excitement that was quickly drowning out any apprehension. His hands found their way under Davos’ untucked shirt, seeking out the skin he had wanted to touch for so long, and he was rewarded with Davos’ shivering sigh. 

 

The whole thing could come apart in some indescribable way, Davos knew, if he didn’t keep it — and himself — together. The minute Stannis had let him into the house, Davos had seen that the situation was far more precarious than he would have thought. If he wanted this, if he wanted Stannis — and he felt light-headed with just how much he did want him — he would have to take a bit more control than he normally would, and now that he knew Stannis was truly _his_ — as he had said — he was reassured and unafraid. After all, he thought, what good were so many nights of fantasies if at least a few couldn’t come true? How long had he wanted Stannis coming completely unmoored for him, set adrift and rapturous, for him? _How long_ , he wondered, and thought it might have been all his life.

And so it was with measured touch that Davos let his hands roam over Stannis’ tense body in the dark bedroom, lightly teasing over his shirt until he felt Stannis shudder toward him, then lingering on each button before opening it, stilling his fingers where they touched the burning skin. His own pulse was pounding, staticky and heavy in his head, but he somehow stayed calm while Stannis’ breath came erratically and he quivered with each undone button, each brush of fingertip. He fell upon Stannis’ chest with his mouth, hands pushing the shirt off his shoulders, sliding down his upper back, and reveled in the harsh, stifled gasps that followed when the shirt fell and his fingers crept beneath Stannis’ waistband. 

“Still okay?” he whispered into Stannis’ shoulder, bringing his hands around to the front of the pants, trying harder than anything he could remember to keep from tearing them off. He felt Stannis nod almost indistinctly against him, the suddenly damp hands grasping his waist under his shirt, and he undid the button and drew the zipper down slowly, each click echoing in the silence.

“Oh Christ,” Stannis said suddenly, putting his hands on top of Davos’ and pushing down the pants and the soft boxer briefs underneath in one awkward but efficacious motion. “If you kept going like that ...” He trailed off. _Breathe,_ Davos told himself, _breathe._ He was grateful for the near-darkness — without it he would likely have alarmed Stannis with too intense a look, or a misdirected gaze. Instead, he let his hands gather sensations where his eyes could not: the tightened muscles of legs and thighs, a suddenly soft patch of skin, a throb of heat that made him dizzy.

With Stannis’ tentative help Davos shed his own clothing quickly, jeans and boxers and t-shirt and sweater a rough tangle on the bed and then the floor. Neither spoke, but their breaths mingled in the air between them before their lips came together again and then Davos could feel Stannis groan into his mouth; his arms found their way around Stannis and pulled him in, drowning in the warmth and the waves of pleasure. 

How long they stayed there naked, entwined, clinging together and basking in each other Davos couldn’t know. But when he felt Stannis start to move against his thigh with a small sound of impatience, he sat up and Stannis came with him. Stannis’ reluctance to pull away was almost overpowering, but Davos persisted. 

“Lie back down,” he whispered, pressing his hands against Stannis’ chest. “This way.” His voice was a bare breath against Stannis’ skin as he guided him onto his stomach, never losing contact with his sides, back, shoulders. “It’s all right,” he said, feeling Stannis tense, hoping he could hear everything unspoken, _I am in no way even started with you_. He wanted to feel all of Stannis, his starved hands not nearly satisfied. There was so much left to discover, so many more hours still to savor each other. But he could hardly seem to articulate it. “It’s all right.”

He ran his hands up the backs of Stannis’ thighs, feeling the wiry hair rise and fall beneath his touch. Stannis was breathing hard, trying to keep himself from gasping, and that made Davos try even harder to make him lose himself. His fingers danced over Stannis’ skin, now unbearably light, almost tickling, now firmer, pressing the heels of his hands into the tensed muscles while his fingertips grazed warm skin. Stannis had wrapped one arm around a pillow and was holding onto it with a strained strength, his biceps taut, his back rising and falling as he tried — still tried — to stop a sigh from coming to his lips. Davos slipped his hands around Stannis’ legs, advancing closer to the crease of his thighs, then drawing back, as Stannis shifted almost violently beneath him. _Yes, this,_ Davos thought. He wanted Stannis trembling on the precipice for as long as either of them could stand it. He closed his eyes, took a deep breath, came in closer.

 

“Davos, _please_ ,” Stannis managed to grind out, caught between a whimper and a moan. “Just …”

“Shh,” Davos whispered, and Stannis could hear the half-smile in it. “I’ve been waiting for you.” His voice dropped lower, sending Stannis into an even more desperate place. He barely felt in control as it was, the blood humming in his ears, fire in his veins. The fact that he knew — with an unspoken certainty, he _knew_ — to what heights Davos hoped to bring him made things torturous. He bit his lip hard, focused on a streetlight visible out the window — anything to keep from going to pieces right there with the barest provocation, anything to let Davos have his way, anything — anything at all, really — to make this last for as long as Davos wanted him. Trying to push these thoughts out of his head — just the thought of what might happen was enough to carry him over some edge — he held himself very still under Davos’ warm and exploring hands. The light outside drifted in and out of focus as his eyes widened and blurred.

Davos slid his hand under Stannis’ hip and moved to turn him over. Embarrassed at his fierce arousal, Stannis resisted for a moment before Davos increased the pressure and rolled Stannis, hardly unwilling, onto his back and descended upon him with kisses, pressing his body into Stannis’ with a stifled moan. Stannis wrapped his arms around Davos and pulled him in tight, devouring his mouth, nibbling at his bottom lip and sucking it into his mouth where he held it for a moment. Davos squirmed against him then, the motion sending shock waves all through his body. 

He opened his eyes, now adjusted to the dim room, and found Davos over him, watching him with an expression that seemed to hover between incredulity and control. Stannis found this combination intoxicating. His breathing came heavy and hard as he stroked up and down Davos’ back, trying to gauge his interest in more possibilities than his mind could even process. Davos mercifully made the decision for him, causing his thoughts and vision to spin and go blank as he felt him sliding down his body, his hair brushing Stannis’ ribs as he went. He remembered dreaming of this, of Davos’ lips on his chest and stomach, electrifying all his senses. Taut and trembling, he dug his nails into his palms as Davos dropped a trail of kisses across his stomach, almost groaning out loud but managing to bite it back. He had the distinct feeling that if he let himself lose control even with his voice, there would be no coming back. 

Just as he thought he was going to fly apart with frustrated need, and fighting the urge to grind up against Davos just to get any kind of contact or friction, Davos glanced up at him with a hesitant sort of smile. “And is it all right if I—” 

Stannis wanted to answer, as words like _yes please God just do it now yes anything you want anything_ tumbled through his mind, but he found he could say nothing, his voice choked in his throat. He put a hand on the back of Davos’ neck and with widened eyes he nodded, once.

That was all Davos needed, and he lowered his eyes again. Stannis noticed, irrelevantly, how from this angle Davos’ eyelashes seemed to brush his cheeks. He took a breath in — so close that Stannis could feel it on his skin — and finally, unbearably slowly it felt, took Stannis in his mouth.

Stannis felt tears spring to his eyes and finally understood what it meant for something to feel so good it made you cry. The rush of sensation was so strong that he clenched his hands in the sheets to anchor himself somewhere in the current of it. Quick sparks were shooting up from all his limbs to converge within him, a place in his stomach or lower that burned high and fast as Davos’ tongue slipped along the length of him. His mouth was warm and Stannis felt as though the skin on his palms and the soles of his feet was on fire. 

Davos let him move inside him, against him, for a few minutes as the pressure built to an almost unbearable level — and then he laid his forearm across Stannis’ hips, pinning him gently but firmly to the bed. _What are you doing,_ Stannis wanted to scream in frustration, but he couldn’t because it made everything more intense and piercing and his world was reduced down to this one sensation, Davos’ mouth and hand hot around him, and the excruciating anticipation of when Davos would finally let him release. As the full reality of that thought hit him — _he will, I can, we are —_ he suddenly couldn’t stop himself, rocking against Davos with a long shuddering cry, pulling almost out, then into his mouth again one more time, coming so hard he forgot how to breathe, and it was like nothing he had ever felt, ever in his life.

And it was addictive, and he needed Davos to feel it too, so as soon as he could move again he pulled Davos up to him, heedless of anything but wanting him as close as possible and as violently undone as Stannis had been — still was, judging from his quivering muscles and shallow breathing. It didn’t matter — Davos had to know what he had just felt; it was more than just a physical release, it was something he could never describe but desperately needed to give Davos if he could. He slid his hand down gropingly between them, still too overwhelmed for embarrassment or hesitation, and when he felt him shiver and groan into his shoulder, he fixed his eyes on Davos’ face and knew he could do this. 


	28. Chapter 28

Later Stannis could only piece together some blinding flashes of recollection, shards of awareness, as if his stunned mind couldn’t process everything start to finish. 

He remembered his heart thudding painfully, pulse uneven, toes curling tight and electricity shooting through every nerve in his body as Davos took him into his mouth, and the way he had finally and gratefully given himself up to Davos and sensation. He remembered the way he had had to remind himself over and over not to hold his breath when he begged Davos to enter him only a little later, not knowing why he suddenly needed that more than he had needed anything in his life but only knowing that he did, that he had to get closer and closer until nothing was between them or could ever come between them. He remembered Davos silencing and comforting his ensuing gasp with deep kisses and his hands kneading Stannis’ back. 

And he could still feel the ghost of the shock, like a thousand sunrises full in his eyes and the slow burn at the end of a live wire, when Davos had unwittingly found a place, an angle, a sudden movement within Stannis that set him clawing at Davos and at the sheets, moaning Davos’ name, his head thrown back in pleasure so sharp it was almost anguish. _What was that_ , he wanted to ask, but his mouth was too dry to speak.

And then Davos biting down on his own lip in concentration, his eyes strange and bright, his hair sweat-damp and falling in his face — and Stannis arching his back up to meet Davos tight in mid-motion and then the drawn-out, almost-sobbing sound that escaped Davos’ lips when he finally let himself come, slipping out and collapsing onto Stannis’ chest, heavy and spent. 

He held Davos close, forgetting the soreness he could feel setting in when Davos lifted his head slightly to look up at him, half-smiling in the dim light, looking like he was going to speak but settling himself again silently. In this sensory-overloaded state, Stannis had no idea what he would have been able to say back anyway, so he merely closed his eyes again and wrapped his arm tighter around Davos. He threaded his fingers through Davos’ hair, letting himself play with the feel of it and with the sense of inexorable calm that was enveloping him. He knew he should get up, couldn’t just lie there sated and wet and warm, with Davos less than half awake on top of him. It would be the responsible thing to do and he told himself he would in just a minute, just after he had memorized the way Davos looked in that moment — his drying hair curving into waves on Stannis’ chest, his eyelids paler than the rest of his face and the skin there so delicate it looked translucent, his lips parted as if he were thinking or dreaming.

—

Stannis awoke in the early sunlight with Davos wrapped tight around him, their fingers entwined against Stannis’ chest, legs and feet a warm tangle. He barely breathed as his muscles woke and lodged protests one at a time, and while his thighs twinged and his synapses formed fragments into memories, a place in his chest and another behind his eyes tingled and sparked into truth. 

“Oh god,” he whispered before he knew he was doing it. A wave of panic gripped him and he almost had to get up and rush out: what had he done, what had they done, and what did it mean? He tensed in Davos’ arms and made himself be still, not to remember, just to be — right there in the present, in his bed, with the person — with the man — who had made his whole body feel like it was on fire with the most pure ecstasy he had ever known, and who shared all of himself, and whose breath now softly warmed the back of Stannis’ neck. Davos was unaware of all these doubts and misgivings, Stannis realized with a pang. He had no idea Stannis lay in his arms, torn between bliss and shame, as much for how thoroughly he had lost himself as for what had actually occurred. 

Still Stannis did not stir, and Davos slept unmoving behind him, only his breath to bespeak his existence — his breath and his hand between Stannis’ own hand and his chest, and the solidity of him in the bed, warm and close. 

For months he had wanted this, burned for it, held himself back from it, and finally taken Davos in his arms and wished for it and kissed him until they couldn’t breathe. And he had invited it — he had told, no, asked Davos to come over when he knew Shireen would be gone and he knew what would happen and he had shivered with the anticipation of it. So what was there to fear now? Closing his eyes against the bright sun, he remembered — everything he had imagined was dulled against the reality. When he had been with Davos, screaming his name in a whisper into his shoulder, he had never felt more alive and more close and more whole. When Davos held him later he had never felt more at peace, and when he turned on Davos almost ferociously and felt him going to pieces under his hands and mouth, he had never felt more triumphant and adoring and complete. 

He remembered something Davos had said after Stannis kissed him, the first time, out on the beach at night. “I think I’ve wanted you maybe since I met you, maybe before,” he had said. Stannis never asked him what he meant by “before.” How could you know you wanted someone — loved someone — before you met them? 

He thought of his life, before Davos had walked out of the fog with his arm around Shireen and changed everything. It was severe, quiet, orderly. Stimulating in its way, with the work Stannis had to do and the social hurdles he had to negotiate. And happy, sometimes, when he would see Shireen finally understand something she had been grappling with or on the occasions he had watched her sleep — rarer since she had grown older — and thought that despite it all he was doing a pretty good job.

But nothing had ever been like this before. Even with Selyse, in the early days before it soured, Stannis had felt a sense of duty, this is what you do and this is how you do it, and it was always about the future and its plans. With Davos he felt at sea, in the dark, half the time — but in the tossing waves of uncertainty Davos was always with him, holding fast to his hand. 

Stannis rolled over in Davos’ arms, turned to face him, watched him stir and wake. Davos met his gaze with sleep-softened eyes, and his lips with warm kisses, dark and dreamlike. When he could breathe again Stannis realized Davos had no reservations about what had passed between them — no conflict or misgiving. The quiet contentment that always hung about Davos seemed mainly to have deepened, and Stannis felt it enveloping him too, and knew that beneath everything there was no reason to doubt.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I guess in my universe Stannis is more, um, passive than in most. Yeah, he’s pretty much completely a bottom. I don’t know. It just came out this way.


	29. Chapter 29

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All right. From here out it’s way more PWP than plot. Just letting you know! Although some interesting things do happen ... but let's be honest ... most of them don't happen outside the confines of a locked room.
> 
> Also, [these condos exist](http://onehotsummer.tumblr.com/post/54978945443/davos-condo-building-at-rainwood) and have been under evacuation watch during bad storms before.

The scent of imminent rain swept over the ocean and inland, blanketing Davos’ condo in fog and the distinct sense of charged ions in the air. From inside, Davos watched the storm coming with only a small measure of trepidation. There was always the danger of mudslides, out here on the edge of the land, and more likely was the risk of road closures. His boss and coworkers would understand if he couldn’t come in, but it worried him because then how were _they_ going to get in to cover for him — or it was possible that the entire beach could be closed and the point rendered moot. As the grey clouds gathered, Davos took stock of his kitchen — certainly enough food to last a few days, he reckoned with relief — even if he had to get into the bulk food that he liked to buy but never seemed to actually cook. Wild rice and quinoa and other healthy grains waited in their plastic bins, bulwarks against hunger and want. And there was half a pint of ice cream and some fruit, cream and a little milk, orange juice and bread. Thus reassured, he was able to stop worrying about his immediate survival and instead let his mind drift toward the inevitable: wishing he had company for the onslaught, warm and distracting company, someone very specific to wrap his arms around and watch the rain.

But it wasn’t realistic, he knew, resolving to move on from these daydreams. If it got as bad as the weather forecast was saying, the highway over the hills could be closed entirely, not even to mention the shaky road up to Davos’ condo. He sat himself down with a sigh, a book and a cup of tea and settled in to wait it out.

The storm arrived with a crack almost like an earthquake, startling Davos — it was louder than he expected and the onset more violent. Driving rain hit at his windows, and the ocean and the sky were blended in one solid sheet of dark grey, so that he could see nothing when he looked out. He couldn’t bring himself to close the shades against the ominous view, so they stayed open and the rain lashed the glass and the wind scoured everything.

 

 

Stannis watched the news with growing dread. The storm had reached land, the beach was in chaos, with sand, rain and seawater mixing together and blowing in great waves across the shore and upland. So far there was nothing about the apartment buildings and condos along the oceanside highway, but that didn’t mean anything — just that the local news hadn’t gotten it together to report it. He fretted and paced and fretted some more. Shireen was in her room with a book and her homework, and she was so absorbed in the reading that she didn’t emerge even for dinner until he went and got her, at which point she sat, fork in one hand and book in the other, not noticing what she ate and retreating to her room again to curl up on the bed and read. Stannis was grateful for this preoccupation, as he didn’t feel capable, this evening, of hiding his discomfiture.

 _Staying dry out there?_ he wrote to Davos in a text message. The answer came back immediately and Stannis sighed in relief. 

_It’s wet and noisy, but fine._

Stannis could hear rain starting to clatter on his roof. He walked around checking that windows were closed, peeking into Shireen’s room where she lay on her stomach, feet in the air. She barely looked up when he passed by. “It’s raining,” he said to her unnecessarily.

“Uh-huh,” she said. Well, he hadn’t raised a talker. He continued pacing the house, checking doors and the garden tools as the rain beat down harder. He could tell from the sound of it that this was going to be a rough one. 

 

 

Amid the deafening rain, Davos had somehow managed to doze off where he sat. He woke when he thought he heard his cell phone buzz, but when he looked there was no message, and he got up to pour more warm water over his tea before wrapping himself in a blanket and settling on his couch again. He thought of just going to bed, but it was too early, and there was nothing worth speaking of on television unless he wanted to watch the Weather Channel, which seemed unnecessary with the actual weather going on not ten feet away. He picked up the book again — a World War II memoir — and told himself to at least get through a few pages before closing his eyes. Eventually the storm receded into the background of his thoughts as the author’s recollections became more intense, and he imagined that the distant sounds were the German bombs over London. Fifty-seven nights of shattering glass, sirens and blood. Though Davos was warm under his blanket, he read the words and shivered.

 

 

At eight o’clock, with the rain steadily falling, Stannis turned on the news again. This time there was a reporter out at the beach, her curly brown hair blowing in all directions and her windbreaker whipping noisily in the gale. He turned up the volume impatiently as her voice resolved out of the noise of the storm. “Caltrans hasn’t decided yet whether to close the road,” she was saying, breathlessly, “but the conditions are getting worse, and the residents along the beach from Rainwood to Tarth are standing by for evacuation orders in the event that mudslides occur—”

“Christ,” said Stannis, muting the TV. Davos’ condo was right in the middle of that area. He picked up the phone, not bothering to text first, but it went immediately to voice mail, Davos’ calm tone coming over the line but not doing anything to ease Stannis’ anxiety. “Damn it!” He set the phone down too hard and turned the news back up. They had cut to a commercial and he dialed Davos again. “Hello, you’ve reached—”

Stannis hung up and dialed another number, this time hearing an answering voice.

“Hello?”

“Masha, this is Stannis,” he began.

“Oh, hi, Stannis. How are you? What’s up?” 

“I have a rather sizeable favor to ask you.” He struggled to keep his voice passive and even. “I need to see if you can watch Shireen for a — for a little while tonight. I can either bring her there or if you don’t mind you can come over here. Her usual sitter needs 24 hours notice ...”

“Of course — is everything all right?”

“I need to deal with a bit of a situation,” Stannis said, knowing he sounded criminally vague, but without enough motivation to worry about that at the moment. “I wouldn’t be more than a couple of hours I should think.”

“I can come over,” she said. “Jeyne will probably want to come as well ...”

“That’s fine, Jeyne and Willow and your ... your wife, anyone really—”

“Roslin is out of town,” said Masha, “but I’ll bring the girls. We can put in a movie or something. Now?”

“As soon as you can,” Stannis said, relief evident in his voice. “I appreciate this very much.”

“We’ll see you in a few.” 

Stannis went upstairs after they had hung up. “Shireen,” he said; the look on his face must have commanded her attention even from her book. “I need to leave for a couple of hours. Jeyne and Willow and their mom are coming over—”

“Which mom? Where are you going?”

“Sorry, Masha is who I meant. I need to go see about Davos. This storm is worse on the beach, and the news has said they may have to evacuate — leave their houses if it gets too bad.”

“I know what _evacuate_ is, Papa,” she said, impatiently waving away the explanation. “But why can’t I go?”

“The roads are dangerous, and it’s better if I go by myself. Also, if Davos has to come back with me — you don’t mind if he stays here, Shireen, do you?”

“Don’t be silly!” 

Stannis chafed at her tone but was gratified at the contents of it. “Good. If he has to come here he might need to bring some things with him, and we want the space in the car for that.”

“I wouldn’t take up much space if I didn’t have to sit in the stupid _car seat_ ...” 

“We can discuss the car seat later. I’m going to get ready now and I will be back as soon as I can. But it could be slow going if the roads are muddy, so Masha may put you to bed.”

“Will Jeyne and Willow stay over?”

“As long as they have to. It’s a school night, so don’t stay up too late — I’ll tell her you are allowed to stay up until ten. She’s going to put in a movie if you want to pick one out.”

While Shireen was choosing a movie, Masha and her daughters drove up and piled out of the car, wet and laughing. 

“Thank you very much for this,” said Stannis at the door, keys in hand. “I told Shireen she may stay up until ten tonight. I won’t be past eleven or maybe twelve if the roads are very bad.”

“Going to the beach?” Why did she have to be so perceptive? And how on earth had she known that?

“Yes,” he said, “I heard they may have to evacuate if there are mudslides.” She nodded and he left, dodging between the raindrops to his car. He called Davos once more, got voice mail again and sent a quick text message. _I’m coming to you_ , it read.

Up, up, through the foggy and winding streets Stannis drove with near-panic impelling him with every block. As he crested the ridge that looked out over the Stormlands Watershed, the rain became almost horizontal, battering his windshield with fat, solid raindrops that, if the temperature were a few degrees lower, would have been hail. He rolled down his window and turned northward along the coastal highway, hoping against hope that it hadn’t been closed. If it had, he would have to deal with the state agency and reach Davos some other way. 

The rain pelted his arm and ran in rivulets down the side of his face; the wind buffeted the car and mud splashed up behind him. The windshield wipers on high speed matched the pounding of his pulse as he drove north and north, watching in the dark for the turnout to Davos’ street and hoping he would be able to see it in this maelstrom. He kept his phone in the cup holder in case Davos tried to call him back, but it stayed dark.

No other cars were on the roads. Stannis was thankful for this as he accelerated up the coast highway, _faster faster faster_ a voice inside him chanting and his body tense and wound. He drove on.

In perfect conditions, the drive from Summerhall to Davos’ place might take 35 minutes. But just half an hour after Stannis had left his house, he pulled up in front of the condo, which was still where it should be on the cliff’s edge and had not slid into the sea. For a moment he felt silly, and wondered if he should just turn around and go home, but then he remembered the unanswered phone calls and a fresh wave of anxiety propelled him to Davos’ door. He probably knocked too hard, but when he heard a startled word from inside and a bump as if someone stood up too quickly, he felt his nervousness draining away.

Davos’ eyes were wide with surprise when he opened the door. He stared at Stannis — dripping with rain, his raincoat shiny under the porchlight — for a moment. “What—”

“They said on the news there were mudslides and you were under evacuation watch. And then I called and you didn’t pick up ...”

“You did? Wait, come inside!” Davos took Stannis by the hand — reassuringly warm and solid — and Stannis, shivering despite his best efforts, followed. He peeled off his jacket and left it in a heap on the rug inside the door. “Yes, I called you three times and I sent you a text,” he said, trying to keep the twin trembles of relief and cold out of his voice.

Davos was looking at his phone. “Nothing,” he said. He dialed a number. “No signal. We must have lost a cell tower.”

“There was some lightning,” Stannis remembered. “I saw it on my way here.”

It seemed to dawn on Davos that Stannis had actually driven up in this weather. “How did you even — Where’s Shireen?” 

“She’s home. Jeyne’s mom came to watch her. I couldn’t bring her, the roads could have been dangerous ...”

“But you came yourself,” Davos said.

Stannis looked at him, and he suddenly ached to hold him, to take him in his arms and warm them both. He couldn’t speak, but Davos smiled.

“And now do you have to go back?”

“I told her,” Stannis said, swallowing and then recovering his voice, “I might be a little while.”

“Do you want to change?” Davos looked anxiously at Stannis’ wet feet and legs. 

“The shirt is all right, but if you had a pair of pants or something ...? And some socks ...”

“Yes, I’ll be right back and I’ll heat up the water for tea. Sit down,” Davos indicated the sofa, and the rumpled blanket, “take off your socks and shoes and warm up for a minute.”

Stannis settled gratefully into the warm nest where Davos must have been sitting. He finally let himself begin to relax. 

 

 

Once he was dressed and warm and the tension somewhat out of his shoulders, with Davos next to him on the sofa, Stannis couldn’t stop watching the storm outside. Every minute it was different — a pounding of rain on the window, a splash of lightning, a crash of wind. 

“Want to go outside and look at it?” Davos asked. They stood and went to the covered patio, Stannis taking the blanket on the way out and spreading it over the picnic bench that sat on the porch. They huddled together on the bench, wrapped in the blanket, their faces getting wet.

“This is rather extreme,” Stannis said. “Does it happen often?”

“Not like this, more than once or twice a year. I generally just wait it out, but nobody really tries to get in or out of here until it’s over.” Davos twisted to look at Stannis, illuminated by the lightbulb above. “I still can’t believe you drove up. It could have been dangerous — the mud, on these hills ...”

“Do you wish I had not?”

“Of course not!” Davos said, quickly. He pulled Stannis’ arm around him and nestled into his shoulder. “I’ve never been so glad to see anyone.”

“Before you came,” he went on after a moment, “I was wishing you were here. I wanted you to be sitting with me, watching the rain ... but I knew it wasn’t possible. Then a couple of hours later here you are.” He shook his head. “How did you know?”

“I can assure you,” Stannis said, his mouth brushing the top of Davos’ head, the damp hair wetting his lips, “there aren’t very many times, lately, when I am not wishing to be with you as well.”

Davos turned his face up to him with that wide, luminous look in his eyes that Stannis was not, he found, able to defend against or hold back from. “Do you do that on purpose?” Stannis murmured.

“Hm?”

“That too,” Stannis said, shivering despite the warm blanket around him. He drew Davos in closer. How was it that one glance, one sound, had the capability to melt and inflame him at the same time? _I am going to figure you out, Davos Seaworth_ , he thought, and fell upon him with ravenous kisses. 

Davos ran his hands up and down Stannis’ sides and back, under his shirt, touching him everywhere and twisting to press his body hard against him. Stannis shrugged out of the blanket and gripped Davos by the shoulders to lay him down on the bench. “Okay?” he rasped out. 

“Mmhm,” came the answer and that only set Stannis off again; he leaned over Davos, positioning himself above him, never taking his eyes off Davos’ face and his suddenly dilated eyes that reflected the porch light and the occasional flashes of lightning. He fumbled at the buttons on Davos’ jeans as Davos dug his fingers into Stannis’ back, jerking upwards into the space between Stannis’ legs and then grabbing him by the hips and pulling him back down. Stannis only had the first three buttons undone before he couldn’t focus on that anymore. “It’s fine,” Davos gasped, “this is fine,” and his eyes fluttered closed as he held Stannis tight against him. 

The cold air and the heat of the friction between them had Stannis hovering acutely between extremes. He felt somehow diffuse, at one with the surrounding elements — the charged air, the needles of rain — but Davos’ firm grasp on him and the slow insistent motion between bodies and hands wrenched him back into his own body, where the prickling warmth threatened to overwhelm him entirely. He ran a hand roughly through Davos’ wet hair and shuddered at the answering moan, and suddenly he had no idea whether he was going to even be able to last another minute, another second looking at Davos’ open, inviting lips and the damp skin on his neck and — “Let me,” Davos was saying, choking the words out, “together,” and it made no sense to Stannis’ dazed mind but the sound of his voice was enough: “together,” Davos repeated, desperately clinging to Stannis, “let me, yes, together, _Stannis_ ...” 

It was far too much for Stannis, the last shreds of his self-control flying to pieces as the sky unleashed a fresh outburst of rain, Davos spasmed violently against him, and their unrestrained cries mingled with the sounds of the storm. 

—

“What did you mean, _together_ ,” Stannis asked when they were curled up inside, on Davos’ sofa, with their wet clothes hanging over the shower rod and a clean warm blanket over them. One empty bowl of ice cream sat before them on the coffee table. He had to leave soon but he lingered over the question, and over the feeling of Davos resting in his arms, still so glorious and so foreign.

“When? What’d I say?” Davos sounded supremely sleepy, leaning up against Stannis and nuzzling his face into the place where Stannis’ neck and shoulder met, tickling the skin with his beard.

“You said,” Stannis said, feeling slightly silly for pressing the issue but wanting to know enough to keep on, “you said, ‘let me, together ...’”

He could feel the warmth rising to Davos’ face. “Oh,” Davos murmured faintly into Stannis’ skin. “I meant. ... I wanted us to ... for it to be ...” He broke off, tried again. “I said together, and that’s what ...” 

Stannis’ breath was arrested and his pulse seemed to skip. “Yes,” he stammered, “yes, of course. You — you called it.”

“I called it,” Davos said, drowsy and proud.


	30. Chapter 30

“Stannis.” Roslin’s voice followed him; he turned back, surprised. She never said much — Masha did all the talking for that family.

“You’re going to have to tell her sometime,” she said, as casually as if she were discussing the weather, or when the girls would visit next and who would do the driving. He didn’t need to ask what she meant. Jeyne and Willow were already in the car, waiting for her to drive them home. Shireen was back inside; he could hear her talking to Davos, through the open window. Roslin turned to head down the driveway.

“Wait,” he said. She looked back at him. “How?” 

“However you want, as long as you tell her.” 

“But how? How did you do it?”

“Jeyne and Willow? I didn’t have to tell them. I had them.”

That surprised Stannis. He had always imagined Masha was the girls’ birth mother. Maybe it was because they had her last name instead of Roslin’s, or — he admitted thinking this to himself with some embarrassment — Masha was more matronly. Wider, less professional. But of course, their daughters belonged to them both.

Roslin saw his hesitation. “I don’t know what you should say to her,” she said. “Masha and I were already together. We decided to have a baby so I got pregnant with Jeyne, and we’re the only parents they’ve ever known. But Shireen probably already knows anyway. Even if she doesn’t think she does.”

Stannis was still at a loss. He wanted _help_ , some words to actually rehearse and then be able to say.

“Are you serious about him?” Roslin asked, still with the same offhanded tone. “Or is he just your first boyfriend?”

The words came as fast as his temper. “My first and last,” he said.

—

It went easier than he had hoped, faster than he’d dreaded, and Stannis found himself wishing — not for the first time — that he had given Shireen more credit up front. He had taken her to a park in the next town, although she had wanted to go to the beach, and while they walked around the little pond with ducks he told her he loved her very much, and then he told her he loved Davos. “Of course you do,” she said. “I love him too.” 

Stannis’ throat tightened dangerously. He stared hard out at the water. 

“It’s not exactly like that,” he said, after he had composed himself. Once more he gave a silent thanks to Masha and Roslin — and, grudgingly, to his wayward brother — for paving the way. “It’s like ... more like how Jeyne and Willow’s mothers love each other. Or ... or your uncle Renly and his partner.”

He forced himself to look at Shireen, to see whether she quite understood and if she did, what she was thinking. Nothing he had done in his life prepared him for the nervousness that overtook him, waiting for her to speak.

“Jeyne and Willow’s moms are married, but Uncle Renly isn’t. Are you going to get married?” was what she said. Out of everything she could have asked, that had not been not on Stannis’ radar as a possibility.

“We have not exactly discussed that yet,” he said, carefully. Then relief washed over him as she smiled her closed-eyes smile that belonged to her alone.

“Well if you do discuss it,” she said, imitating his grave tone — he had not meant to sound _quite_ so serious — “I think that would be good.”

Stannis nodded. “I’ll remember that,” he said. “But then he would live with us, you know. That would change things.”

“What things?”

All kinds of possibilities whirled through his head, from the mundane to the sublime. Davos would have a hellish commute to work. Stannis would need to start making three breakfasts. And he and Davos would almost never have to say goodbye without knowing they’d be together again by the end of the day. He swallowed hard before answering; he couldn’t say he hadn’t thought of what it would be like to live with Davos, but he hadn’t quite considered it with the level of detail he should have known Shireen would want. 

“Some things would just be different,” he said. “There’s always a little more commotion with another person. And you know, it’s just been the two of us for almost your whole life.”

“I know it!” Shireen said, looking up at him. “You never had a girlfriend. All the other dads who aren’t married have girlfriends.”

Stannis had to laugh then, some of his tension finally dissipating. “I never met anyone interesting,” he said.

“Davos is interesting. Papa ... would he be my other dad? Like Masha and Roslin are Jeyne and Willow’s moms?”

“I don’t ....” He broke off and thought a moment. “I don’t think it is exactly the same. Roslin told me the other day that she and Masha had been together for several years before they decided to have Jeyne.” He hoped Shireen wouldn’t ask, right at that moment, how they managed to have Jeyne without the situation that was covered in the science textbook, though he supposed it wouldn’t be too difficult to explain the medical theory. “So,” he went on, “they were both the moms from the beginning. I suppose we would just have to see how it worked out.”

“Are you going to want more kids?” 

Stannis couldn’t work out whether Shireen was for or against this possibility, but it hardly mattered. He choked back a fit of laughter. “We’ve got six between us,” he said. “I think that’s probably enough, don’t you?”

After a few moments: “I have another question.”

“Yes?”

“Can I tell Jeyne?”

“Do you want to tell her?”

“Of course I want to tell her! She’s my best friend and she’s going to be so excited.”

Stannis felt very light. The idea that the nature of his and Davos’ relationship could be somehow discovered was suddenly no threat at all. If Shireen was happy, he wanted everyone to know. “You may tell her,” he said, leaning down to kiss the top of Shireen’s head. “You can tell anyone you want to tell.”

—

“I doubt she’s quite processed it,” he said to Davos later on the phone, after Shireen was in bed. “She had some rather odd questions. But all in all—”

“Are you going to tell me what they were?”

Stannis blushed unaccountably. “Well, actually, I’d rather tell you in person if you don’t mind. But it wasn’t anything I couldn’t handle, exactly.”

“Mm,” Davos said. “Good. Of course, I can’t imagine a question you can’t handle ...”

“She said she loved you,” said Stannis abruptly. 

“When did she do that?” Davos’ voice had grown faint and Stannis understood why.

“Right after I told her I did.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was kind of out of my depth on this one, but I did all kinds of research (anyone looking through my Google history will wonder why I was reading so much on "how to come out to your 9-year-old" when I have neither a 9-year-old nor a closet to come out of) and talked to some same-sex parents, whose parenting situation I based Masha and Roslin on. I hope it's not too out there or unbelievable. Shireen, as always, rises to the occasion.


	31. Chapter 31

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's a content warning for:  
> -dramatic near-drowning  
> -dogs in trouble  
> -graphic description of someone's first time giving a BJ.
> 
> So if you don't want to read about any of those ... don't read this chapter, maybe don't also read ASOIAF though ... I can recommend a good story in this week's New Yorker.

It all happened so fast Stannis couldn’t exactly be sure what he had seen and what he had imagined. One minute he and Davos were sitting on the bench in the late Sunday afternoon half-light, talking about anything and nothing, while Shireen lay on the sand nearby staring up at the clouds. The next minute there was a sharp bark, higher pitched than a dog should sound, it seemed to Stannis — and then a yell, and then the entire beach was in chaos. Davos was gone in a flash, down to the water line, and then he was actually in the water, uniform, boots and all, and —

“What’s happening?” Shireen sat up, eyes wide. “Papa? What’s — Oh, there’s someone out there!”

Stannis shaded his eyes and saw Davos out in the waves, reaching down, pulling. His stomach churned. He wanted to go help, to get Davos out, to bring him back safely to dry land. But he had no idea what he would have done. Shireen scrambled up and clung to him, almost in tears in her panic. 

He took Shireen’s hand. This would be too much for her, far too upsetting no matter the outcome. “Come on,” he said to her. “We can’t help.” Davos was still struggling with the figure in the water. Another man had dived in, and a group of onlookers gathered on the shore, their high voices carrying across and up the beach.

“But Papa—!”

“I said we’re _going_.” He took her by the shoulder, hard, turning her away from the scene and marching her up to the parking lot, into the car. Shireen’s face was pale and scared, and Stannis sat in the seat unable to even start the car for the shaking of his hands. He rolled down the window to get some fresh air. 

“He went in after his dog,” he heard a woman passing by the car, before the voices, clucking and concerned, drifted away. 

Stannis didn’t really plan to stay, but with Shireen he waited in silent vigil while other rangers’ trucks pulled up in the parking lot and families began coming to their cars and driving away. He could see Shireen fidgeting slightly, wanting to get out and see about Davos, but he kept his face hard and stony and she did not ask.

It seemed like one of the longest waits in his life, but the dashboard clock said it had been only fifteen minutes since they got in the car when Davos finally came up to them, stooping near Stannis’ window to look in. 

“You’re still here,” he said, and his voice was glutted with exhaustion. His clothes were soaked, hair disheveled, and his face was startlingly impassive. 

Stannis took Davos’ hand between both of his own. “Are you all right?”

“I guess so,” Davos said, though he sounded unconvinced. “I had to drag him out, and this surfer knew CPR, I don’t know if you saw him but he jumped in after us.”

“I saw him,” Shireen said, looking over. “Did he save—”

“Everyone is okay,” Davos said. “I know CPR, of course, you have to learn it for this job. But I’d spent a lot of energy pulling him out — the tide was much stronger than any of us had thought. So it was much better to have someone else to help.”

“He lived?” Stannis asked, low.

“Yes. He’s fine. His dog ran into the waves, and he didn’t see the dog come out again, so he went in after him.” Davos shook his head. “It’s a bad mistake to make. The dog can swim better than the person any time, in any conditions.”  
  
“What happened to the dog?” asked Shireen.

“He swam back just before I came up here. Went right to his owner and started licking his face — well,” Davos broke off, turning away. Shireen’s eyes were filling with tears again, shiny in the afternoon light. 

“You don’t have to tell us any more,” Stannis said, still pressing tightly down on Davos’ hand. 

“Papa, I need the bathroom,” Shireen whispered, still near tears. “Can I get out now?”

“Yes, just come right back here. Don’t go down to the water, the tide is still dangerous right now. Go and then come back.” 

She let herself out and when she was out of sight Davos knelt down next to the car. He leaned his forehead against the open window frame, and said nothing. Stannis put his hand on Davos’ head and stroked his hair, gently, running his fingers through the damp tangles. He picked up a few strands and lifted them to his lips. “I wish you could come home with us,” he murmured against them. “I don’t want you to be alone.”

“This hardly happens,” Davos said, vaguely, “only about three or four times in my entire career. I’ve been lucky that way. I’m still lucky.”

“You’re _careful_ ,” said Stannis, firmly. “But I still want you to come over and have dinner with us.”

“They’ve closed the beach,” said Davos, almost as if it were an afterthought. “So I could do that.”

Shireen approached, quiet, without the usual skip or hop in her step. She went around to Davos where he still knelt on the pavement and put her arms around him. Stannis again fought back a wave of emotion, remembering how she had said “I love him too.” 

“I was scared,” she said. “I knew you wouldn’t drown but ...”

“And you were right, he didn’t,” Stannis said, reining in the whole scene before it got out of hand. “They’re closing this part of the beach for today, so Davos is coming to eat dinner with us.”

“Good!” Shireen jumped up. She never could be still for long. Then she looked at Davos critically. “But you’re all wet.”

“Oh,” Davos said, “I have other clothes in the office. I’ll follow you in a minute.” He stood up, taking Stannis’ hand once more through the open window, and Stannis was pleased to see that he looked steadier on his feet than before. “See you soon,” he said, heading back to the visitors’ center.

 

 

Davos was still quieter than usual all through dinner, and when Shireen hugged him good night after they had watched part of a movie, she held on a little longer than she usually did before scampering off to bed.

Once they were alone, Stannis turned to Davos and took his hand once more. “Are you really all right?” he asked.  

“I’m not sure,” Davos finally admitted. He fixed his gaze on the opposite wall above the blank television screen. “I keep hearing that guy yell, and the dog barking.”

Stannis was at a loss, so he merely moved closer to Davos on the sofa and put an arm around his shoulders, rubbing his palm on the scratchy wool of Davos’ sweater. “Is there anything I can do to help?”

“Just stay here like this,” Davos said in almost a whisper. He put his head down on Stannis’ shoulder and Stannis could smell the sea, closer than usual, in his hair. He turned to press his mouth to the top of Davos’ head, trying to shut out the same sounds that haunted Davos and the vision of him chest-deep in the water. 

After a silent while Davos turned, bringing his face up to Stannis’ and brushing their lips together, so softly it would have tickled if Stannis had not been overeager in spite of himself, pressing his mouth against Davos’ harder, opening Davos’ mouth with his tongue, gently and then with more confidence as he felt him respond. With a hand on the back of Davos’ neck he tried to massage out some of the tension he still felt there, and when Davos slumped against him, his breathing gone deep and quick, Stannis pressed him down on the sofa cushions and kissed him harder, with thankfulness unspoken but falling from his lips. He closed his eyes against the image of the rising waves and held Davos tighter.

 

—

 

The next day Stannis was still shaken. He had sent Davos home late, reluctantly, with lingering kisses on the dark porch and all Davos’ reassurances that he really was okay. But the feeling of something left unspoken, or undone, remained as Stannis tried, without success, to focus on work. He wished he had been able to comfort Davos more, to make him forget somehow, to make nothing in the world matter for a little while besides the two of them. 

Just before midday, with Shireen not due back from school until four, he decided enough was enough. In his usual telegraphic style he texted Davos: “Meet for lunch in an hour? Your place?”

And Davos replied almost immediately: “yes please!”

Stannis could almost see Davos’ grin when he read the words. With a half-smile himself he wrote once more: “Make it a longer break if you possibly can.” He got in his car and tossed the phone in the back seat with his jacket. Ten minutes down the highway he heard the buzz of an answering text; imagining what it said kept Stannis amused and frustrated in equal part, anticipation propelling him onward, for the last long stretch of road.

He was a little early and waited in the car while he watched for Davos to pull up. Just as he was thinking he should actually check that text to make sure the plans were still on, the little beige hatchback appeared — was Davos driving faster than usual or was it just Stannis’ imagination? They said very little as they met in the parking lot, Stannis following Davos quickly up the stairs, until they were both inside. Then Stannis was about to explain that he hadn’t actually brought any lunch, but Davos stunned him into silence before the first word was out, pulling him over to the little sofa and pushing him down onto it, wrapping himself partway around Stannis and kissing him until they were out of breath.

“Davos —” Stannis managed to gasp out, “what ...”

“What _what_ ,” said Davos, breathing hard, face and neck flushed. “I missed you.” 

“You just saw me last— _oh_ ,” Stannis’ words turned to a groan as Davos dived for his neck again, mouth warm on his skin. He was still amazed at just how aroused he could get in such a short time under Davos’ attention, every inch of him tingling and wanting, and Davos above him seemed in no less desperate straits. When Stannis felt him hot and hard against his thigh he was so overwhelmed he almost couldn’t breathe. He remembered their first night together, the absolute sobbing bliss that had overtaken him when Davos had slid his body down Stannis’ and taken Stannis in his mouth the first time. He didn’t even know he was intending to do it but he untangled his hands from Davos’ hair where they had found their way into its waves, and reached down between them to unbutton Davos’ pants.

“How much time do you have,” he managed to get out. A demand, not a question. 

“As much time as you want ... I said that in ... in the text,” Davos said, nearly incoherently, trailing off into a moan as Stannis wrapped his hand around him and squeezed firmly. His eyes closed. “Oh god. Two hours.” 

“Good, because.” Stannis couldn’t say it, but somehow he managed to get the point across — he lifted Davos forcibly from atop him and pushed him down to sit on the sofa, dragging his pants and boxers down and almost flinging them across the room. He didn’t start thinking about how nervous he was until he was in front of Davos, kneeling between his legs, holding onto his thighs hard to try to still his sudden tremors.

“Are you ... you don’t have to ...” Davos was hardly able to get the words out around his gasps when Stannis bent to kiss the warm inner thigh, and scrape his cheek roughly against the soft skin there. He could almost feel Davos trying to hold very still, could imagine him straining against his impulse, and he was torn between wanting to cause him to go to pieces now or draw it out. He ran his tongue carefully up the hardness, from bottom to top, testing both their reactions, and when Davos shuddered convulsively toward him Stannis felt his own sparking shivers follow immediately. The feel of Davos’ skin there was foreign on his tongue, smoother than he could have imagined possible, with intricate landscapes he hadn’t noticed with his hands. He went slowly, eyes closed, to concentrate on mapping each millimeter of skin with his mouth, and to discover variances of taste that were unfamiliar to him but not at all unpleasant — they were _Davos_ , his scent and sweat made succulent on Stannis’ tongue. 

He looked up at Davos then, but Davos’ eyes were squeezed shut, his head thrown back on the sofa cushions and his lip firmly caught between his teeth. He looked delicious, as good as he tasted, and Stannis shed the last of his self-consciousness as he wet his lips and carefully guided Davos into his mouth.

Davos let out a long shuddering sigh, and Stannis hummed in appreciation, just for a moment but it was enough to send Davos into another spasm. His hands crawled into Stannis’ hair, and as Stannis warmed to the feeling and began moving tentatively, Davos sank his hands into Stannis’ shoulders and pressed down hard and Stannis melted under the touch.

He didn’t exactly know what he should be doing, and trying to remember what Davos had done to him was not helping his focus any. But he felt as though the room was tilting under him when Davos dragged his fingers once more through Stannis’ hair and whimpered through his teeth. “Stannis, oh god,” he panted, “I want ...”

Stannis stilled, and looked up, curious, to meet Davos’ eyes. They were wide open and aflame. 

“Just ... look at me,” Davos ground out, his gasps rising with his hips as Stannis sucked, gently, somewhere back in his throat, and just that was enough — Davos cried out once more and tried to pull out of Stannis’ mouth, but Stannis held him there, riding through the convulsions, swallowing on pure instinct, and never breaking his steady gaze on Davos’ face, entranced by the way it changed every second.

Stannis let Davos come down, finally releasing him with a sweaty hand, coming up to sit by him again, rolling the tastes around in his mouth — salty, of course, with something else underlying that was sharp, organic, but also lush and almost sweet— and wondering whether he was supposed to mind it more than he did. His lips were dry, and he licked them without realizing that he was doing it until he heard Davos’ small and desperate noise beside him. 

“Hm?” he turned to Davos. 

Davos took a deep, shaky breath. His face was still bright under his tanned skin, but his eyes had gone warm and calm and the look of him was intoxicating. The serenity vanished the next second as Davos reached up under Stannis’ shirt, not bothering with buttons but pushing it up over his head and off. He moved to straddle Stannis on the sofa and Stannis could only gasp in surprise, then give himself up to Davos’ hands and mouth as the room whirled and went white around him.


	32. Chapter 32

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warnings for teenage violence, homophobic language, and improbable cameos.

Stannis smiled in surprise when he saw Davos was calling him in the middle of the day. But this faded when he heard Davos’ voice, breathless and sharpened with excitement. 

“He’s come back — he’s here,” Davos said. Stannis frowned, confused.

“Who is here?” he asked, gently — Davos sounded so wound up as to be nearly on the verge of panic. Whatever was going on, Stannis had never heard him quite like this.

“ _Maric_ ,” Davos said. “He’s _here_. At my house. He just showed up at the beach and —”

“Is he all right?”

“I think so. He looks thin and tired and I think he’s been living on the streets for weeks ... but somehow he got out here from Highgarden, he won’t tell me exactly how ...”

“Are _you_ all right?”

Davos was quiet for a moment and Stannis could imagine him trying to collect his thoughts. “It’s a shock,” he said. “He’s so different. The last time I saw him he was an angsty fifteen-year-old who dyed his hair black and never wanted to talk and, you know, just stayed in his room and listened to music.”

“And now?”

“It’s hard to explain. He’s almost seventeen and I think he’s grown a foot. Now the hair is black with some blue in it. ... I told him about you,” he said suddenly.

Stannis’ mouth went dry, though he wasn’t sure why he was so surprised. “Oh yes?”

“I told him I ... that I had found someone, and that it was you. And that we were, um. Serious. It was one of the first things I told him when I got him back to the condo.”

“Yes,” Stannis said, his eyes gone soft along with his voice. “Good. When will we meet him? Shireen and I? She’s going to be ...”

“Overwhelmed,” Davos supplied. “He’s _nothing_ like Devan.”

“Bring him over tonight if he’s not too tired,” Stannis said. “She’ll never stop asking questions until you do.”

 

Maric Seaworth was, indeed, nothing at all like Devan. Nothing like anyone Stannis and Shireen had known in Summerhall, for that matter. He was lanky and pale and dark-eyed, and his blue-black hair hung down over the top half of his face until he swept it away to talk to you. He was polite and distant to Stannis, less so to his father and still less to Shireen, who seemed to have such a knack for winning over Davos’ sons that Stannis didn’t know whether to be pleased or alarmed. He wore black jeans and scuffed Army boots and t-shirts with band names and a leather motorcycle jacket that he didn’t take off, even when the sun beat down on him in Stannis’ back yard. 

He was staying for a month before going back to Dorne and Marya — but he wouldn’t go before the end of the school year, because he was damned, he said, if he’d set foot in that high school again. When they talked to Marya she agreed to the plan as long as he would work on getting his high school equivalency certificate when the fall rolled around.

And they had moved in with Stannis and Shireen for the duration of the time he would be there. Davos’ place was tiny, large enough to host Devan for a week sleeping on the sofa, but it was not equipped for Maric and besides, Stannis insisted, he and Shireen had plenty of extra room. So Maric was installed in the guest bedroom and Stannis suddenly found himself making four breakfasts instead of the three he’d thought of when Shireen asked him what would change if they ended up living together with Davos. It was awkward having a broody teenager in the house, Stannis had to admit, especially when Shireen went to school and Davos to work and the two of them were left together to clear away the dishes and settle in for the day. But Maric found things to do, wandering Summerhall for miles, or taking the train north or south to the bigger cities and returning with hundreds of cell-phone photos and stories over dinner about what he had seen. As the days went on, a platinum-blonde girl began to feature more prominently in the photos.

But Maric wouldn’t talk about Highgarden or how he had managed to arrive at Storm’s End. He said nothing, not even to Shireen, about the past year. Davos, stretching across Stannis’ bed languidly late one night, said he wasn’t planning to pry — he was just glad Maric was safe. Then he took Stannis in his arms and they fell contentedly to sleep, listening to the sound of the spring winds outside.

Stannis hadn’t let himself think of how much he would like sharing a home and a bed with Davos until it was there on his doorstep, a reality to be dealt with. He still wasn’t a morning person, but after about a week of waking up with Davos curled around him, or lazily stroking his back, or up on an elbow watching him in the early sunlight, he began to see the appeal of the hours before 7 a.m. The evenings were even better, when around sunset Davos would drive home from work — they could hear the hatchback’s cranky engine coming down the street — and over dinner Stannis would relax, content in the knowledge that Davos didn’t have to leave. 

But the nights were the best; Shireen would be asleep and Maric in his room on the computer, and Stannis could hold Davos close on the sofa or on the back porch as the weather warmed, without the covetousness and haste that came with stolen time.

He knew it couldn’t last. Davos’ commute from Summerhall to Storm’s End was long, but feasible in the spring and summer — but when the fall rains came again, it would be prohibitive to put him through that every day. And the condo would need more attention in the winter. And, he had to admit, his productivity had fallen off somewhat since Davos and Maric had moved in — but it was worth it, when Stannis would wake in the middle of the night and roll over to find himself in Davos’ arms. He would sometimes awaken Davos with kisses then, and silently under the covers they would push off pajama bottoms and t-shirts, their mingled breaths filling the room. The next morning he would be heavy-lidded, quiet over his teacup and the newspaper and with that nebulous feeling of sleep deprivation hanging over him. 

“I’m always keeping you awake,” whispered Davos one sultry night, licking the salty sweat off the back of Stannis’ neck. Stannis shivered in the heavy air and then turned on Davos fiercely, holding him down to the bed, hands on his shoulders. 

“I don’t care,” he said roughly, flinging the too-warm covers aside. “I don’t need sleep. I need _you_ though.”

Stannis leaned down and kissed him hard, pressing himself in between Davos’ thighs, rubbing up against him artlessly. 

“You’re insatiable,” Davos said, amusement and arousal coloring his tone in equal part, his hands sliding down to cup Stannis’ ass. 

“Your fault,” Stannis shot back, as tartly as he could with his breath coming hard and fast. 

“Nine years is too long to go without,” Davos breathed, “I knew it.”

Stannis groaned into his ear, “Thirty-eight years ...”

“Hm?” Davos was holding him tight, arching up into the space between them, his eyes squeezed shut. Stannis found his voice one last time, covering Davos with his body, violently grinding down onto him, the heat and fire rising in his veins and spreading all through him.

“Thirty-eight years before — oh god — before I found you,” he gasped, holding onto Davos, hands slippery with perspiration, and choking out the last words as he came, “is. Too. Fucking. Long.” 

 

—

 

Maric knew he was fighting a losing battle, fighting a forest fire with a can of soda, but he doggedly kept on anyway trying to explain to his — was she his girlfriend? — to _that girl_ why he couldn’t stay in Summerhall.  

“I have to go back home,” he said, over and over, trying not to drown in Dany’s eyes, so blue they were almost violet, overflowing with tears. “I’ve got to go back to Dorne, and see my mother ... but I’ll come back. We’ll keep in touch, okay? I’ll come back ...” and then she had pulled his head back by his hair and kissed him and cried at the same time, a torrent of sobs, more tears than he thought one person could cry, raining down on his face. “Dany,” he tried to say around her open mouth, “I’ll come back.”

“ _You will not either_ ,” Dany hissed. Sometimes she scared Maric with the force of her feelings. He was no stranger to emotional, high-strung girls; he had dated them in high school, made out with them in Highgarden, made love to them and fell asleep with them in rickety bus shelters on the long road back to the Stormlands. But this was different. Dany was like being caught in a hurricane from which you could never escape with your life. Maric wasn’t always sure he wanted to escape.

He heard a sniggering laugh behind him, and turned to see a boy maybe a year or two younger than himself, blonde and smirking, staring at them. “Oh hey,” the kid said, with studied, sneering casualness. “Am I interrupting? ... You know, I wouldn’t have thought you were into girls.”

“Excuse me?” Maric said carefully. “Who the fuck are you?”

“ _Who the fuck are you_ ,” the boy mimicked. 

“It’s that little twat Joffrey Lannister,” Dany said, wiping her tears and her smeared mascara. “Shireen’s friend’s brother.”

“Oh, you’re Myrcella’s brother?” Maric kept a hand protectively on Dany’s lower back. “Wow, I’ve heard _great_ things about you. Glowing personal recommendations. A prince among men.”

Joffrey’s eyes narrowed. “Where’d you learn to talk so pretty, Maric Seaworth?” he said. “You learn that from your faggot of a father?”

The next second Maric had pinned the kid up against the high school wall Dany had been leaning on. His hand was around Joffrey’s throat and he heard, as though from far away, Dany crying again, and much closer, Joffrey wheezing for breath. His green eyes had gone wide and panicked.

“Did you really think I wouldn’t kick your fucking ass,” Maric said, softly, almost philosophically, holding Joffrey easily. He hadn’t slept on the streets of Highgarden’s slums for almost ten months, keeping the bums off him, repelling the junkies and dodging the muggers, for nothing. And he had lost his temper plenty of times. He’d lost it enough times to know that when he didn’t lose it, he was at his most controlled, and when he was under control, he had no fear. When he had no fear, his opponent absorbed it all. Joffrey shook with rage and panic. He opened his mouth.

“No, I think you should just keep your trap shut, kiddo,” said Maric. “And just listen to me for a second. Okay?” He tightened his grip the slightest amount. “ _Okay_?”

Joffrey nodded fast, his mouth gaping open like a fish.

“The next time you call my father a faggot.” The word came easier to Maric than it had to Joffrey. “I will hear about it. Because nobody likes you. Because you are a useless little shitstain. And they’ll tell me. And then I’ll come back for you.” One more twist, knuckles against the windpipe. He watched Joffrey’s lips swell ever so slightly. “Oh, incidentally, I haven’t heard such _fantastic_ things about your father either, for what that’s worth. I mean, talk about your perverse—”

“ _Maric_ ,” came the sudden scream. He had not known Shireen could yell that loudly.  He dropped Joffrey, and hardly stayed to watch him slump against the bricks. He took Shireen’s hand and she was shaking harder than Joffrey had been. The elementary school was just next door; he might have expected she’d show up. Dany was gone.

“It’s okay, all right?” he said to her. “That little shit — we were just fucking around. Ah, sorry for my French. Don’t tell your dad.” 

“That you were fighting Joff?” Shireen’s little voice quavered.

Maric laughed. His heart rate was slowing back to normal already, that was good. “No, you can tell him that. I’ll tell him myself, in fact. Just don’t tell him I called Joffrey that name. Okay?” 

Shireen was smiling, tremulously. “I won’t. ... What did you mean about Joff’s father though?”

He had to think. How much should a nine-year-old know? It was all rumor and speculation anyway, although Dany and her friends seemed to believe it — that Joffrey’s mom and dad were somehow related, as unthinkable as that was — not just second cousins either. Far closer than they should have been. 

“It doesn’t matter, Princess,” Maric said, deciding he would rather Stannis not hear that he had been telling his daughter about those types of things. And Myrcella was Shireen’s friend. And Tommen, by all accounts, was an okay little kid if he could just get out of his crazy mom’s orbit. “It’s just a bunch of bullsh-... a bunch of stupid gossip.”

He put his arm around her and squeezed her shoulder. They were going home.


	33. Chapter 33

Davos had been uncharacteristically quiet all through dinner. First Stannis had wondered if he was upset or tired; but no, his eyes were soft and face peaceful as he watched Stannis across the table. Indeed, Stannis noticed Davos was looking at him more thoughtfully than he had been lately, in the whirlwind of the kids and their temporary combining of houses. They had both been tired out by the end of the week, so when Maric asked if they wanted to go out while he stayed home and looked after Shireen, Davos took him up on it gratefully and Stannis was easily enough convinced. 

“And stay out _late_ ,” Maric had muttered to them as they were leaving, after Stannis had kissed Shireen goodbye. “I’m almost out of here, and with us underfoot all the time you never have time by yourselves.” It was strange, Stannis thought. In the past few days, Maric had been almost protective of the three of them — Shireen, Davos, and Stannis. It had seemed a few times like he was going to say something to Stannis, but then he never did.

“How late,” Stannis asked, smirking. It was surprisingly easy to joke with Maric now; there was something about his sardonic wit that matched Stannis’ own.

“You want a curfew from me? All right. Two a.m.”

“Two—” That even shocked Stannis. He choked back a cough that threatened to turn into a laugh. “And if we’re late?”

“Don’t _be_ late,” Maric said. “Oh, and Stannis?” 

“Yes?” He turned back, almost out the door.

“Don’t be early.”

 

 

On the way to the place where they had decided to eat dinner — which happened to be take-out pho, at Davos’ neglected condo — Stannis had wondered aloud which of Maric or Shireen would be doing more of the babysitting. “Maric will stay up later, but Shireen will be the one to remember to eat dinner,” he said. But Davos had only half-smiled, distractedly. 

As the evening went on he became more withdrawn, and the sun went down over the ocean, leaving the only light the candle Davos had lit and set on the dining room table. It flickered against his face and warmed his gaze. But Stannis worried.

“Is everything all right?” he finally asked as they finished dinner. 

“Hm? Oh ... yes ... of course.” 

Stannis felt a tug of frustration that he would be so distant on one of their only evenings alone, but then Davos spoke again. “I was just thinking,” he said, “how things are so easy for us now ...”

“With Maric here?” Stannis was still thinking of practicalities.

“No — well, yes, but that’s not what I meant.” Davos looked off somewhere, past Stannis, out the window and toward the beach. “I meant from how it was before. For us to even acknowledge that anything—” 

He broke off, and there was that strange smile again, half sad, half amused.

“No, it was fine,” Stannis protested, “it’s worth it now ...”

For the first time Davos seemed to look directly at him. “It was hardly _fine_ then,” he said pointedly. “It was excruciating.” 

Stannis looked at him numbly. He wondered if Davos meant what it sounded like he meant.

“Every time we would get close, I would think, this is so obvious,” he went on. “Just our hands would touch or we would be talking and it was like I had been hit in the head with a brick and couldn’t move away from you if my life depended on it. And I know it was the same way for you. But then you would pull back and it was like ... like I was stranded somewhere, again, always on that same island, alone. You were my lifeline, but I didn’t know if you would keep coming back.”

His voice was almost pained then, dropping low and full of feeling as the darkness swallowed the little candle flame. Stannis’ chest hurt; his heart was suddenly pounding. He blinked hard. He opened his mouth to say something, but no words came, so he reached across the table for Davos’ hand. The warmth of it comforted him as he held it, too tightly he knew, but he had to keep hold of Davos somehow.

After a few labored breaths he was able to find his voice. “Come here,” he said, unsteadily. He stood, and Davos silently followed when he led him into his bedroom. But he didn’t take Davos in his arms or lie down. In the still, slightly humid air, he brushed a kiss across Davos’ forehead, a soothing thing lighter than a breath, and he combed his fingers through the wavy hair, sliding his hands down into the collar of Davos’ shirt. With acute deliberation he began unbuttoning it, taking his time, savoring each bared millimeter of skin.

Stannis had him mostly undressed, his hands moving silently and languidly over Davos’ body, before Davos ever spoke. 

“What are you doing,” he breathed, his exposed skin rising into goosebumps under Stannis’ touch. _Finally_ , Stannis thought with a shadow of satisfaction, _he’s not thinking about the past anymore_.

Stannis leaned down to him and ghosted his lips over his face, then across his throat and down his chest, the slightest touch setting Davos trembling. He was down to Davos’ stomach when he finally answered. “Making it up to you,” he murmured against the skin.  

He felt Davos shudder violently, and he smiled as he pressed him against the bedroom wall, hard against the cold plaster. Davos’ hands found their way into his hair, the barest hint of fingernails curling into his scalp as he explored the rest of Davos’ body, gentle and slow. There must be no doubt in Davos’ mind just how much he was cared for, Stannis resolved as he sank lower and breathed together with Davos in the darkness — no confusion ever, any more.

 

 

It was just a bit after 2 a.m. and the Summerhall house was asleep. Stannis thought he and Davos soon would be, too. But Davos had looked at him, a silent heat rising in his eyes, and whispered what he wanted to do to him — “to lie under me and fuck me so I can see your face when I make you come,” is what he actually said — and Stannis could not breathe for the pounding of his heart. He hadn’t entirely known what it would be like. He thought fleetingly of Selyse and then more lingeringly of Davos’ warm mouth; he felt Davos preparing them both in the half-light and gave himself up to whatever was asked of him. 

But he had not expected ... _this_ , the feeling of Davos surrounding him in heat and tension, and the desperate sense of falling and blistering and wondering whether his pleasure would actually, this time, rip him into pieces.

And he never expected Davos to set such a torturously slow pace atop him, holding him down and obviously wrestling with his own restraint, trying to keep himself quiet and not wake Shireen and Maric, though there was nearly the space of the whole house between them. It was all going to Stannis’ head and he came up to the edge again and again and then Davos held him back. And sometimes it was all Stannis could do to focus on Davos’ face and his parted lips and whisper _stop moving_ for a second until he could pull together some semblance of self-control.

But, after all, he could only take so much. He didn’t know he had been pleading with Davos for his release until he opened his glazed eyes again and saw Davos watching him with an expression he had not ever seen: something fevered and startlingly possessive. “Yes, now,” Davos murmured, half a groan and half an assent, in answer to Stannis’ unremembered question. And then he threw his head back, shifting his body and tearing a gasp from Stannis’ parched lips, and Stannis let himself go.

It only seemed a moment before his stifled moan was ripped from him fiercely as he thrashed his head from side to side, eyes squeezed closed, and rolled his hips up to crash into Davos hard in midair. The singing burn along his every nerve was so intense that he had no idea anymore what was Davos, what was himself, what was the air around them. He felt like he was inside a bolt of lightning, all of him electrified and on fire. 

“God, I love you like this,” Davos whispered, his voice a shiver into Stannis’ ear, a texture he could feel as well as hear. That was all it took: the thin thread that held Stannis back from the depthless ocean broke, and he teetered and fell and silently clung to Davos, straining for breath, feeling every sensation so deeply that it scared him. 

Davos never let him go, even when Stannis could feel him coming, a pulsing jolt and a shattered sigh and if anything Davos held him tighter as they shuddered through the aftershocks. Each time Davos moved it set Stannis off again, jerking his hips violently, his arousal still coursing through all his muscles. Finally Davos took pity on him, sliding off him with a soft exhale, to come up and lean sleepily against Stannis’ shoulder.

Stannis couldn’t suppress a tiny smile as he turned his face to Davos, burying his nose in his hair — there was something about the scent that would always remind him of the two of them curled tightly together in their afterglow. He breathed in deeply, feeling his limbs begin to sink into sleep before his mind was quite there. Davos slipped out of bed and padded off to the shower, but Stannis could not stay awake to wait for his return.

 

— 

 

Stannis’ fingernails were short, but still sharp enough to rake tracks down Davos’ back that he could feel stinging in the shower. And when he came back into the bedroom — naked and glowing, skin still steaming — he slid between the sheets and into Stannis’ arms. Stannis awoke and blinked sleepily at him, before closing his eyes again and running his hand down Davos’ back, their skin sticking together. Davos sighed contentedly and curled himself tighter into Stannis’ embrace.

In the morning, he felt Stannis’ breath on his shoulder. “I guess we should get up,” he said without conviction, eyes still closed. 

Stannis muttered what could have been an agreement, shifting where he lay and then sitting up, peeling the sheets off Davos in the early light.

“Good God,” Stannis said in a forced whisper. “Your back! Did I do that ...?”

“No, it must’ve been someone else,” Davos said in a sleepy deadpan. 

Stannis refused the diversion. “How did— Does it hurt?”

“In a way. A good way.” Davos shivered as he felt Stannis tracing a finger down his back, lighter than air. The harshness of Stannis’ voice was at odds with the softness of the touch, and Davos felt his skin rising in goosebumps — at both the touch and the sound. He turned to look at Stannis; he was scowling, chastising himself. “I should be more careful.”

Davos twisted suddenly, lay atop Stannis, held his shoulders down. He silenced Stannis’ gasp with a kiss, long and forceful, and felt his arms come around him. “I can handle it,” he said, teeth clenched together and tone brooking no argument. And he smiled in triumph when he saw Stannis’ eyes go wide and shocked, and felt his nails tighten into his back again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was dedicated especially to Hedge_witch for reminding me that Davos could still be a little grumpy about how long it took Stannis to come around, and that perhaps Stannis ought to realize this and try to make it up to him ...


	34. Chapter 34

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warning for unholy amounts of out-of-character sentimentality. But if you're not used to that by now ... Well, I bet you are.
> 
> And this chapter is dedicated to fordandfitzroy for giving me the idea about "boyfriend??!!!" :) Collaborative writing, people. It's an awesome thing.

Maric had gone, and Shireen moped, and Stannis regarded her with some alarm. Was this the onset of the dreaded prepubescent moodiness? It seemed too young — she was not yet ten. But she almost always cheered up around Jeyne and Willow, and Stannis was grateful for Jeyne’s forthrightness when one afternoon the girls got in what could nearly have passed for an argument.

“Why are you so _cranky_?” Jeyne had said in frustration. “You never used to bite my head off and now you’re all ... grumpy all the time.” Stannis was in the kitchen and the window and patio were open to let the summer afternoon warmth in, so he could hear everything. Shireen’s answer shocked him, though.

“I miss Maric,” she said after a minute, with all traces of irritation gone. 

“Why?”

Stannis wasn’t sure, but he thought he could hear Shireen’s voice quivering. “I just do. ... I never had a big brother before.”

“What about Devan?” Jeyne asked. “Do you miss him too?”

“That’s different,” Shireen said. “He’s just a boy. Well, more like a friend than a boy I guess. But ...”

“I know,” Jeyne said. “Maric’s older.”

“Well, it’s not just that he’s older. He’s ... he’s _cool._ ” 

Stannis didn’t think he had ever heard Shireen describe anything or anyone as “cool.” He would have to tell Davos, he thought, suppressing a grin.

“He _is_ cool,” Jeyne agreed. “Mom said he was so cute he would break all the girls’ hearts. She went on and on about his eyelashes.”

“Shut _up_ , Jeyne!” But Shireen was laughing. Stannis knew “Mom” was Roslin. “Anyway, he’s got a girlfriend. Or he had one. I saw her when he was in that fight ... that thing with Joff.”

“It’s good Myrcella isn’t here now that Joff’s back for the summer,” Jeyne said. 

“Yeah. I miss her too, but she’s happier with her uncle Kevan, remember in that letter she sent us. I can’t wait till we can email each other.”

“It’s her great-uncle.”

“Whatever!”

“You should email her now,” suggested Jeyne. “Just log onto your dad’s computer and do it. I can with Mama’s.”

Stannis had to turn away so his sudden stifled laugh wouldn’t be heard. He would have to talk to Masha about her security settings. The girls were chatting about Myrcella now — how Cersei’s uncle had come up from Casterly Rock on business, seen the state of things at home and insisted, somehow, that Myrcella come live with him until Joffrey was out of the house.

“And she just _let_ her go,” Shireen was saying. “Like she wasn’t even her mom at all. Or like she was more Joff’s mom than Myrcella’s.”

“Still it’s better,” said Jeyne. “Because her mom can’t make her cry and Joff can’t get to her.”

“Maric would have killed him,” Shireen said, “if he’d ever seen him hitting Myrcella the way she said he did. He would have killed him and then gone to jail, maybe. That would be bad. So I guess I’m glad she got to go. She even found a soccer club down there.”

“How would he have killed him?” Jeyne sounded intrigued, too much so, really. “With a knife, or his fists or what? Do you think he could have poisoned him somehow?”

“I don’t want to talk about it,” said Shireen.

 

 

Later Stannis was talking to Davos on the phone and told him Shireen was pining away for Maric. “I was actually quite surprised,” he said. 

“I’m not,” said Davos. “Look at them. They were inseparable. Remember at that restaurant when Maric was cutting up Shireen’s steak ...”

“Which he _absolutely_ didn’t need to do, Shireen can _cook_ her own steak, let alone needing help to cut it ...”

“Which he didn’t need to do, but he did, and the waitress said something like ‘Look how sweet you are to your little sister!’”

Stannis smiled thinking, about it. “I remember that.” 

“And none of us said anything to correct her. Maric would have, too. He would’ve told her straight off that she was wrong ... if he’d minded.”

“Shireen was pretty happy with it all the way home, too,” Stannis recalled. “And she liked that he called her ‘Princess’ all the time. I suppose I never call her anything like that. ... But what am I going to do about it now? We can’t just bring him back. He’s back home and getting his GED and I imagine Marya would be devastated for him to leave again. Maybe over the holidays ...”

“I think he and Devan both want to come back then,” Davos said. “But maybe you could have a little party or something for her. Something where she can have some more friends over.”

“Good lord, a party.” Stannis dreaded the very idea of it. But perhaps just a few friends ...

 

 

Two weekends later Stannis found himself cleaning up more food and drink and gaming detritus than he’d thought existed. Shireen, happy and exhausted, had flopped on the sofa in the den to sleep off the sunburn she’d gotten playing outside all day, and Davos, mercifully, was making dinner. There was one more kid left to be picked up — Stannis wasn’t even entirely sure who he was — but his parents were soon at the door, apologizing for their lateness.

“No problem,” Davos said, coming out of the kitchen with a tomato-stained wooden spoon still in his hand. “He’s just downstairs. I’ll get him.”

Shireen and the boy — Brandon, that was his name — emerged from the basement with Davos. 

“Thank you for having me,” Brandon said politely, mostly turning toward Stannis but looking at his shoes.

“Thanks for coming,” Shireen said. “I’ll see you at school pretty soon. Maybe you can be on our co-ed squad. I’ll talk to Coach Brienne about it.”

Brandon’s dad took him out to the car, and Shireen went back downstairs, Davos began heading to the kitchen — but the mother lingered for a moment.

“You and your boyfriend are raising a wonderful young lady,” she said to Stannis.

Stannis stopped short, at a complete loss for words. “We— ah ...” he started.

“We’re doing our best!” Davos interrupted, beaming at her. Even as discomfited as he was, that flash of smile always made Stannis feel like he had gotten the wind knocked out of him. “Shireen is pretty great, it doesn’t take much.”

“Well, whatever it is, you’re doing it right. Have a great night, guys,” she said, and turned to follow her family out to the car.

Davos and Stannis stood looking at each other in the quiet hallway. Davos was the first to break the silence. “Of course,” he said, trying for casual, “I’m hardly raising her. But sometimes you just have to take a compliment.”

That wasn’t what had frozen Stannis to the spot. “You are helping,” he said, finding his voice. “But _boyfriend_?”

“Oh, that,” Davos said, “I wondered what you were thinking when she said that. Which part do you object to, the ‘boy’ or the ‘friend’? Or the whole thing?”

“I don’t _object_ to any of it. It’s ... different.”

“Is there another word you’d rather use?”

Stannis remembered how Davos had salvaged that awkward situation, as he’d salvaged so many others, and how grateful he always was for that — for the sudden social graces that he himself had never understood or attempted. It was just one of the reasons he was glad to have Davos at his side. “Any words are all right,” he told Davos, leaning in, first kissing his forehead, then his cheekbone and finally his lips, “they all mean the same thing — _mine._ ” 

 

 

“You didn’t seem to mind my talking to that woman,” Stannis said near midnight, softening his teasing words against Davos’ chest as they lay, naked, in the rumpled bed.

“Which one? When?” Davos was in that post-orgasmic haze Stannis had gotten used to, and even started to cherish, where he couldn’t remember basic conversations they’d had just an hour earlier, or people they had seen. On anyone else he imagined it would be irritating as hell, but with Davos ... well, it just added to Stannis’ sense of satisfaction.

“That mother, Brandon’s mom, I think? I wondered, since you said you were sometimes ... that is, you said you didn’t like when other people were talking to me ...”

“Oh no,” Davos said, his face clearing some. “I don’t think about that anymore.”

“Not at all?” Was that relief or disappointment Stannis felt? He supposed he didn’t _mind_ , after all, being coveted ...

“You told me on the beach,” Davos said, stroking a hand through Stannis’ sweaty hair. “You said, ‘I’m not going anywhere.’”

Stannis felt warmth spreading all through him. “Oh yes?” he murmured. “I did say that.”

“And you wouldn’t say that if it weren’t true. So, by all the laws of rational deduction ...” Davos shuddered when Stannis laid an open-mouthed kiss against the crook of his neck.

“Go on, Watson,” Stannis whispered.

“By all — well, that; whatever I said ...” and Stannis felt him hardening again under his hands, and slid back under the sheet.

“Go on ...”

“Then — _Stannis_ ,” he sighed quietly _, “_ I know you ... you must have meant it.”

“Meant what,” muffled, from under the covers. 

“That ... that ... oh god,” Davos said, helpless under Stannis’ exploring mouth.

“That _what_?”

Davos twitched, wound one leg around Stannis, almost blocking him from hearing what he said next. But he did hear it.

“That you’re staying ...”

“ _Yes_ ,” Stannis said, with a long gentle stroke of his tongue. He had never known how much he’d love this, taking Davos meticulously apart this way, at his own whim and at whatever pace he felt like at the time. He was fairly sure he would never tire of it. He let himself get lost in Davos, in his taste and his skin, for awhile. “And?”

“And ... that you’re mine.” Davos’ breath was coming fast, his chest rising and falling.

“Mm-hm,” Stannis hummed around him. He felt the familiar shivers that always meant Davos was getting close; his head buzzed with the anticipation. But he released Davos for one more word. “ _And_?”

“And that ...” Davos moaned wordlessly when Stannis took him into his mouth again, then held him there, still, waiting. And when he said it, Stannis dived down on him, taking him in deeply, blissfully, finally giving him the permission to let go. “And that you love me.”


	35. Chapter 35

It was a number Stannis didn’t recognize, but he picked up anyway. Someone was always calling from work and they were all over the world. He reached over to the coffee table in front of the sofa where he and Davos were sitting, each reading in the afternoon light that slanted in from the west window. “Hello?” 

“Hello, Stannis?” He was silent; the voice was familiar, but it couldn’t be ... “You’re probably pretty shocked to hear from me.”

“ _Selyse?_ ” 

Davos’ eyebrows shot up. He gave Stannis a small, reassuring smile and gathered himself to get up and leave, but Stannis reached out and took tight hold of his wrist, pulling him back down, pleading with his eyes. So Davos stayed, sliding his hand into Stannis’ and lacing their fingers together. He balanced the _New Yorker_ on his knee and turned the page with his other hand.

“Is it a bad time?”

“No ... it’s a fine time. Is everything all right?” Something must have happened, or she wouldn’t have called. They hadn’t talked on the phone in almost seven years. He tried, with dread sitting suddenly heavy in his stomach, to judge by her voice whether she was drunk. 

“Everything is fine. I just wanted to talk to you?” she said. Thankfully, she sounded sober. He started to remember her voice, her intonations: the vowels that curved slightly upward at the end of a sentence, rendering every statement somehow a question. “How are you?”

This was awkward. Why was she actually calling? “I’m well,” he said, his eyes drifting meaninglessly to the article Davos was reading. It was by John McPhee, about geology and writing. The printed phrases jumped out at him at random while he waited to see what Selyse wanted. “And you?”

“I — well, I’m okay,” she said, “and Shireen is okay?”

“She’s doing very well also,” Stannis said, trying to keep his voice even and casual, mostly for the benefit of Davos next to him. “Good grades, having fun in soccer ...”

“She sent me the picture in the mail,” said Selyse. “Of the two of you skiing?”

“Oh, yes. She said she was going to do that. I didn’t know she ever did, though ... she never asked me for a stamp or anything.”

“Well, she sent it, and she wrote me a little note? She said, um ...”

Stannis waited. 

“She said you had gone with your best friend, Davos? And his son? Who’s Davos? I didn’t know you had any—”

“Any friends?”

“Well, kind of?”

“This is a bit of a different situation,” he said stiffly. “Hold on just a moment.”

He put the call on mute and looked at Davos. “Shireen told her about our going to Winterfell with you,” he said. “And so I probably ought to explain.” 

“Really, I’ll go,” Davos said. “You should have this conversation in private.” Stannis was about to stop him again, but he saw how uncomfortable Davos looked and so, brushing his lips against the top of Davos’ hand, this time he let him leave.

“All right. Selyse? Are you still there?”

“Yes. Hi.”

“All right,” he said again, taking a deep breath. He had told Shireen. Why was this so much harder? “When did she send that photo to you?”

“In January, I think?”

“And you’re only calling now?”

“I wasn’t home when it came,” Selyse answered, her voice quieter. “I was in ... I was at a program.”

“What kind of a program.” His patience was wearing thin and he wanted Davos back, with his calming presence to anchor him.

He heard her sigh. “A recovery program.”

Oh. That type of program. “I’m ... I’m glad to hear that, Selyse. Really.” 

“Around the holidays I sort of hit rock bottom. Like when you know you’re about to hit it? And you decide to do something about it?” Stannis did not know, but he nodded, though Selyse couldn’t see him. “So I called Delena on, I think it was Christmas Eve? And she ... and we found a facility and a therapist, a group kind of thing, and I stayed for a couple of months until I got sober, got all my issues sorted out. ... Well, as many as I could, anyway.”

Stannis felt a strange, sudden rush of tenderness toward her; the feeling was foreign, he had spent so much time scorning her from afar. But now she sounded vulnerable and young, much younger than when they had been together. 

“I’m glad,” he said again. His own news seemed less dramatic in light of what she had said, and then he was able to just tell her. “Davos and I were ‘just’ friends when we went skiing. But now ... he and I are together,” he said, “we’re quite serious, in fact. And Shireen knows now. That’s why I asked you when she had sent that photo. I told her about it maybe a month ago.”

Selyse inhaled sharply; he could hear her struggling for a response.  

“I’m sure you’re surprised,” he went on, to spare her having to speak, he supposed. “Just as surprised as I was when it happened.”

“I wondered,” Selyse said finally. “That’s kind of why I called. It’s not really a thing guys do? Even if they’re friends, going traveling together ...”

Stannis laughed, suddenly. Each person he told about Davos made him feel a little less guilty, a little less furtive and more transparent. It was a relieving feeling. “That’s what Davos said his son told him too.”

“The one you went skiing with?”

“No. The, let’s see ... the second son. Out of five.”

“ _Five_?” 

“Yes, that was also my reaction at first. Five. Dale, Allard, Matthos, Maric and Devan. I’ve met the last two. Maric ran away from his mother, ended up in Highgarden for a few months and then came out here.”

“Highgarden,” Selyse said, “that reminds me of something I saw on the news ...”

“I hope this does not involve a professional athlete.”

“I may be surprised by you, but not by Renly. You could see _that_ about ten miles off.”

It was much easier to talk to Selyse, Stannis found, when he didn’t have to worry that she was getting drunk as they spoke, or that she was going to forget what she had said and deny it later. But after a few more minutes she asked again about Shireen. “Can I talk to her?”

“Yes, she’s around somewhere. I’m surprised she hasn’t come in to see who I’m talking to yet. I’ll get her.”

“Just a second though.” Selyse was quiet again for a moment; he wasn’t used to these thoughtful-sounding pauses from her, but they weren’t unwelcome. “Just before you get her ... I’m glad you’ve found someone ... I don’t care if it’s a guy. And I’m glad Shireen likes him. And I hope you’ll be very happy.”

Stannis found it hard to answer with a sudden tightness in his throat and chest choking off his words. Finally he found some. 

“Thank you,” he said; it was all he could manage. “I am.”


	36. Chapter 36

Davos thought talking Stannis down from his conversation with his ex-wife would take some work, and he puttered around the Summerhall house restlessly while they talked, trying to think what would be best to do or say. He’d believed, once, that there was a pattern to Stannis’ impatience, but it seemed to be harder to pin down than he’d first thought, not flaring as often nor lasting as long. But this would surely incite his temper, if not outright rage. Davos felt a little ill to think of it. 

Why _had_ she called, anyway? And how was Stannis going to explain ... whatever it is he had to explain, about the two of them? However he did it, Davos didn’t think he ought to be in the room for it. As he paced, he second- and third-guessed himself. Maybe he should have stayed there; maybe Stannis could have taken some comfort from his presence. He had felt Stannis’ tension lessening when their hands had joined. He would have held him there forever. Still, telling Selyse about them was something to be done alone.

But when he peeked into the room he had left, where they were talking, he didn’t see the expected pacing and clenching of teeth. Instead, they seemed to be having a friendly conversation; he even saw Stannis smile once before he ducked back out of sight. Davos sighed in resignation. Clearly he was not yet going to understand what was going on here. But a tiny bit of hope flickered anyway, that Stannis had shed his resentment, that he and Selyse could have the same amicable relationship he himself had with Marya, without Shireen always caught in the middle. He heard Stannis come out and call Shireen downstairs to the phone — even stranger — and resolved to ask no questions, just to carry on and then listen when Stannis wanted to talk.

 

That evening Davos came back from the grocery store to find Stannis and Shireen talking about Selyse.

“She said if you’ll be free in July, or maybe early August, she could come up ... I know you have soccer starting,” Stannis was saying.

 “I’ll skip soccer,” said Shireen. “This is more important.”

Davos looked a question at Stannis, but it was Shireen who turned to him. Her face was aglow with excitement.

“Davos,” she said, “my mother is coming to see me.”

This left Davos almost speechless. “Wow,” he said to her, but he was still more aware of Stannis, trying to gauge his opinion of all this. “That’s ...”

“It’s good,” Stannis supplied. “We talked. She’s doing well. She wants to come visit Shireen this summer. And then if it goes well, over fall break, maybe she will take her on a little road trip for a few days.”

This was even more surprising: Stannis would let Selyse take Shireen out of his sight? Surely that must have been some conversation.

“ _And_ , she said I could decide where to go this fall,” Shireen went on. “Like a national park, or Disneyland, or one of the big cities ...” She looked at Davos. “How am I supposed to pick out something like that?”

“Let’s look at the atlas,” Davos said. This, at least, was something he could do, as lost as he was in the sudden shifts of the parental dynamics here. “We can figure out how long you’d want to be in the car, how far away from home ...”

“Not _very_ far away,” said Shireen. 

Davos reached to the top shelf of Stannis’ bookcase and took down a huge, cloth-bound U.S. atlas, turned to their state, and spread it out on the floor. Shireen flopped down next to it, on her stomach, bare feet in the air, and Davos sat down next to her. 

“Okay, we’re here, of course,” he said. “Winterfell is up here, that drive was about four hours. If you want to go to that national park, it’s about three hours a different way; if you want to go to Casterly Rock, it’s six hours south but there’s a lot of traffic.” He looked up at Stannis, grinning. “I wouldn’t really recommend it.”

“What if I want to see Maric,” Shireen said vaguely. “Where do they live?”

“That’s a good two and a half, three days’ drive.” Davos stretched out on the floor near Shireen, his jeans catching on the carpet. Together they flipped through more pages, Davos showing everywhere he’d been and how long it had taken him on bus or train or driving alone in the car. He showed her where Marya and the boys lived, in the southern deserts, and she looked at it for a long time. Stannis had opened his laptop and was working, leaning forward to the table.

“I’m excited, but a little worried, though,” she said, in an absent way, almost as if she were just speaking to herself. Davos had to strain to hear what she said next. “I’m not sure if ... if Mama will like me. I mean, she _left_.”

“I don’t think that was because of you,” Davos said, carefully. “I mean, you know, my sons’ mom and I didn’t stay together. And it wasn’t their fault.”

Shireen looked up at him, comprehension dawning. “It was because of her, right?”  
  
“More because of me, really. Or it just wasn’t right, to stay married. When we didn’t love each other like ... like that anymore. But it definitely wasn’t anything to do with the kids. And I’m sure it’s the same thing with your—”

“But what if she doesn’t like me, anyway?” Shireen fretted. “What if we just don’t get along?”

“If you go with her, and you aren’t happy,” he said, “no matter where you are ... you can call me, or Maric, or any of us. And we’ll come to get you.”

He glanced up at Stannis, hoping he hadn’t even heard this exchange, really. But Stannis was looking right at him, something unreadable in his face. 

Shireen noticed Stannis had stopped typing on the laptop. “Why aren’t you angry at Mama anymore, anyway?” she asked him. 

Stannis sighed heavily, and hesitated. 

“It may be a bit hard for me to explain,” he said, obviously fumbling for words. Davos wanted to help, but this time he didn’t know how. 

“Sometimes ...” Stannis stopped, tried again. “Sometimes you think you’re upset about something, but it’s really something else, underneath that. And no matter what it is,” he went on after another long pause, during which Shireen kept her serious gaze leveled at him, “you can’t stay mad forever.”

“You’re just never mad anymore at all,” Shireen said, rolling over onto her back, smiling up at the ceiling, a twinkling, almost mischievous grin. “I think _that’s_ Davos’ fault.”

“Oh, jeez,” Davos said, feeling his face rapidly reddening, from his neckline up. Stannis said nothing. “Can we just get back to the maps?”

 

 

When Shireen went to bed, hours after dinner, she took the atlas with her. Stannis went to look in on her while Davos was putting a record on the player and refilling their wine glasses.

“She’s sleeping with that atlas open on her bed,” Stannis informed him when he re-emerged. 

“It’s a disease.” Davos was cleaning off the turntable’s dusty needle. “How long has it been since you’ve used this thing? ... Map addiction. I’m terribly sorry if I’ve passed it on to her.” 

Stannis came close to him then, and carefully laid a warm hand on his back. 

“She’s right, incidentally.”

“About what?” But Davos held his breath. He thought he might have an idea.

“My, ah ... my temperament.” It came out with difficulty. “And my trust.”

“I know,” Davos said softly, still fidgeting with the record, wiping unnecessarily at its grooves with a cloth because he was afraid of what he might say if he looked right at Stannis then. It would be embarrassing, whatever it was. He hadn’t known how deeply he could fall for anyone until he was already beyond all hope of reversing his course. He had just had to trust — in himself, in Stannis — that it would all work out. And now hearing that he had actually changed Stannis’ life, or at least his outlook, for the better ... well, it was almost past bearing. His throat burned with all the things he wanted to tell Stannis but couldn’t.

“I know you know,” answered Stannis. In the face of the simplicity of that, there was nothing more Davos needed to say.

 

—

 

Stannis thought Davos was taking his hand later that night just to lead him off to bed, but when he stood — pleasantly unsteady from the wine they’d had after dinner — he was surprised when Davos stopped him in the middle of the room and put his arms around him.

“Dance with me,” Davos murmured, words fuzzy, into his shirt. 

 _What_ did he say? Stannis frowned down at him. “I don’t _dance_ ,” he said. 

“Never?”

“No.”

Davos laced his hands together around Stannis’ back and pulled him in closer. “Maybe just with me,” he said, and when he looked up at Stannis with eyes warm in the dim lamplight, Stannis knew he was defeated. The music was still playing, soft voices over acoustic guitar and low drums. 

“I don’t know how.”

“S’okay,” said Davos, “I’ll lead.” 

Stannis really never had danced, not even in high school or college or at his own wedding, such as it was. He had shot down all of Selyse’s suggestions about traditional trappings and they ended up with a spartan ceremony that still lasted far too long for Stannis. A tiny, unexpected pang of guilt arose in him — _I’ll do better this time —_ and he tried to let go of his automatic, rising tension and just let Davos do whatever he wanted to do.

“Like this,” whispered Davos, trying to keep from waking Shireen by speaking too loudly. “It’s in waltz time so we step like ... _one_ -two-three, _one_ -two-three.” Stannis could feel their feet bumping gently together on the carpet. He spread his hand out against Davos’ lower back, enjoying the warmth radiating from him. But he couldn’t feel the rhythm of the music the way Davos seemed to — however, it hardly seemed to matter as Davos never unwound his arms from Stannis’ waist while he steered them around the living room in an amorphous circle. 

After a few minutes he leaned against Stannis. “Too much moving,” he said, and Stannis was about to apologize again for his lack of grace, “for me, I mean,” Davos went on, grinning up at Stannis. He settled his head against Stannis’ shoulder and vaguely hummed the song that was playing.

“You’re half-asleep,” Stannis said, smiling into Davos’ hair. He still wasn’t sure about this whole thing, but he couldn’t help feeling content nonetheless with Davos in his arms like this, nestled tight against him where he always fit so perfectly.

“Mm-hm,” Davos agreed, eyes closed, slipping his hand up the back of Stannis’ shirt and rubbing warm circles on his skin. They swayed together in the golden light, standing nearly still; even after the album ended and Stannis could hear faint static from the speakers, he stayed there with his lips pressed to the top of Davos’ head, breathing him in.

 

_The End_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The song at the end is [here](http://onehotsummer.tumblr.com/post/55519737070) (tumblr) or [here](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kCQ_OZRJyXU) (YouTube). Trigger warning: Jimmy Buffett.
> 
> This is the last actual chapter, but there's an epilogue coming too so stay tuned.


	37. Chapter 37

**Epilogue**

She had never tried to draw a sunshower, and she had never tried to draw a seal from so close, but there they were — out there on the edge of the world. The mist curled the pages of her notebook and smeared the lines of her pencil; still, it didn’t matter. The seals regarded her with big brown eyes from the safety of their rock. Shireen held very still, only her hand moving, hardly breathing as she tried to get their expression down on paper. The precise lines could wait until she got home with the pen her art teacher had told her to get. Right now, the important thing was not to scare them away.

Shireen knew she couldn’t feed them or pet them, the way she had wanted to when she first came here with her class — when she had become lost, in the fog, like a child — she still got embarrassed when she thought about it. It was less than a year ago, but it seemed like longer. Now she was ten. Today was her birthday, and the beach had given her not just a seal, but _two_ seals, still and curious and close enough so she could see their whiskers.

Later she would have dinner with Papa and Davos and Jeyne and Willow, and the next day would be summer soccer practice. Myrcella was gone, but she kept in touch with letters and nobody had to worry about her mother now. And then in the next month, Shireen’s own mother would be coming to visit her. Mama would probably come back in the fall, and they would take a trip somewhere. Her parents said Shireen could even decide where they went. Shireen was a bit nervous because she didn’t remember Mama, but her father said he was sure they would have a good time, and he was usually right. And Davos had said that if she didn’t have a good time she should call and he or one of his sons would come get her. At first Shireen thought he was joking, but all the time she knew Maric _would_ come, if she needed him.

Then at the holidays, Maric and Devan would come back, and they would all go to Winterfell. Maybe the others would, too. Dale and his wife, and Allard, and even Matthos, if Allard could convince him — Davos had said this to her father and they had both laughed. Shireen had never imagined her life would be so full of boys, but it only took a minute before she remembered not to be afraid of any of them. After all, they all belonged to Davos, and Davos made everyone happy. 

Shireen watched him and her father talking on the rocks, right down by the shoreline. The ranger named Jon Snow was working upland, in the visitor’s center, and Shireen had shyly said hello to him and he had remembered her. 

 _This is the best birthday I’ve ever had_ , she realized. All these plans, and she didn’t have to worry so much about her father now, whether he would ever be quite happy like the other parents — like Jeyne’s moms, who were always laughing and making jokes. “ _Bad_ jokes,” Jeyne said. She was starting to become embarrassed of Masha’s loud voice. Shireen wanted to be sympathetic, but she couldn’t think of anything about Papa that embarrassed her. 

Her thoughts wandered with the waves, between the seals and her mother. When she had to worry about Papa, she hadn’t had time to think about her mother except how she’d made him upset. But now, she could think about her separately from that — _Selyse_ , what a beautiful name that was. It sounded like a waterfall. Maybe she could tell Shireen why they had named her Shireen. Maybe she’d tell stories about what it was like when Shireen was born. Her father never really seemed to want to talk about it.

For all those years — ten years, one for each birthday — it had just been the two of them. “You were everything to each other,” she heard Davos say once. He’d sounded sad, but Shireen didn’t know why. That time was nice, but now they had a big family, and they could all still be everything. It would just be in all different ways. 

She could hear them talking now, coming closer — Davos and her father, and the seals too, one to another out on their rock. The seals had a fish or something else floppy, maybe seaweed, and they were tossing it back and forth between their mouths, playing tug-of-war with it. On the shore, Davos was looking at the sky, up at the strange light. Her father turned to her and smiled and waved. She waved back, holding down her sketch with the other hand, shielding it from the wet air. And the rain, through the sunshine, fell lightly on her upturned palm.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This story was a love song to the beautiful place I live, and how close you can feel to the integral parts of the world here: air, water, earth -- which is why I titled it "Elemental" -- especially down by the Pacific Ocean where everything except the elements is scoured away by the wind and the waves. 
> 
> To fordandfitzroy I hope you enjoyed it, and thanks for the idea, the location, and ever getting me into this crazy Stannis/Davos maelstrom. :)
> 
> To Hedge_witch you inspire me all the time, no matter what you're doing, and I hope this story can return a tiny bit of what you've contributed to my universe and to the Stavos Canon.
> 
> To all my amazing commenters: you've made it all worth it.
> 
> (And to GRRM of course, for creating these characters to be molded into our own imaginings: muchas smooches.)
> 
> All love,  
> your faithful correspondent.


End file.
